2/19/2010 Phrygian language, relationship of ancient records to Phrygian monuments.

Notes with a discussion on ancient records of Pausanias, etc.

Extracts from texts as they may relate to the Phrygian culture and religion and its relationship to the Etruscans. These notes describe the nature and extent of the Greek religion from one city to the next and their knowledge of Cybele and Attis. The description of the Zodiac by Aratas is particularly relevant, as the Midas City plateau relates to the gods and the behavior of their constellations. Strabo's description of Phrygia is of interest. He lists a place called Midiaeium in a location that approximates the Midas City archeological site.

This section contains:
Notes from the Argonautica
Notes from the Aeneid
Notes from Alcman
Notes from Pausanius
Notes from Ramsay, Hieropolis
Notes on Aratus of Soli, Phaenomena
Notes on Pliny, Natural History
Notes on Strabo, Geography
Notes on the origin of the Phrygians and Muski, Phrygian1k.html

Note from the Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century B.C.)

Book IV, line 1755 - Euphemus heard Jason’s prophecy with joy and did not make it void. He threw the clod into the depths of thesea, and there grew up from it an island called Calliste, the sacred Nurse of his decendants. These lived at first in Sintian Lemnos, till they were driven out by the Tyrrhenians and found a new home in Sparta. Later they left Sparta and settled in Calliste under the leadership of Autesion’s son, the noble Theras, who named the island Thera after himself. But long before this happened Euphemus’ days were over.

Note: This paragraph from the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (third century B.C.) indicates that several generations after the Argonauts the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans) were in Lemnos. Lemnos is relevant to the "Etruscan Phrases" discussion from several points of view, 1) being a place of the god Hephaistos and linked to Cybele, 2) Lemnos is a word in the Midas Monument and 3) the Lemnos Script has been regarded as Etruscan; yet, the punctuation mark (3 dot colon) is the same as that used by the Phrygians.

Note from the Aeneid, by Virgil (70 B.C.-19 B.C)

Book 1, line 394 ...I am Aeneas, a good, devoted man; I carry with me
My household gods, saved from the Greeks; I am Known
In heaven; it is Italy I seek,
A homeland for me there, and a race descended
From lofty Jove. With a score of ships we started
Over the Phrygian ocean, following fate
And the way my mother pointed out...

Book III, line 103 ...There is a land
Called Crete, an island in themidst of the sea,
The cradle of our race; it has a mountain,
Ida, like ours, a hundred mighty cities,
Abounding wealth; if I recall correctly,
Teucer, our greatest father, came from there
To the Rhoetean [cape near Troy] shores to found his kingdom.
Ilium was nothing then, the towers of Troy
Undramed of; men lived in the lowly valleys.
And Cybele, the Great Mother, came from Crete
With her clashing cymbals, and her grove of Ida
Was named from that original; the silence
Of her mysterious rites, the harnessed lions
Before her chariot wheels, all testify
To Cretan legend. Come, then, let us follow
Where the gods lead, and seek the Cretan kingdom.

Note: It appears that the ancient poets and historians had a view of the land of the Trojans and the sea upon its coast as "Phrygian." (Strabo's "Geography" explains this) Also the tradition Virgil relates that Cybele originated in Crete must come from earlier documents and legends known to Virgil. The connection of the Roman ancestors with Troy and Phrygia was adopted by those whom the Romans later conquered, particularly the British and the Teutonic peoples. Viktor Rydberg's three volume work, "Teutonic Mythology," 1907, reviews the Teutonic legends relating to Teutonic origins in Troy. Most of the Teutonic, Trojan origins revolve around the Teutonic supreme god, Thor, and Odin (Wodan) and his consort, mother of the gods, Frigg. The work may be read on the internet at: http://www.vaidilute.com/books/norroena/rydberg-contents.html. Rydberg concludes that the Teutonic legends reflect an amalgamation of Teutonic tradition with Roman origins, thereby giving the Teutonic tribes a noble claim to Trojan lineage. There is a similarity between the Phrygian / Trojan and Teutonic tumuli burials. Teutonic barrows contained timber-lined burial chambers very much like the Phrygian tumuli of Gordion. This form of tumuli differs from the Greek and British tumuli that contain stone-lined burial chambers. Pausanias describes many of the barrows (tumuli) of Greece, as he tours the Greek towns and holy places. The barrows he describes contained stone chambers. Of interest is Sophocles' description of Agamemnon's burial which is below a mound (not matching the Grave Circle at Mycenae):

Sophocles, "Electra," CHRYSOTHEMIS: Well, thou shalt hear all that I have seen. When I came to our father's ancient tomb, I saw that streams of milk had lately flowed from the top of the mound, and that his sepulchre was encircled with garlands of all flowers that blow. I was astonished at the sight, and peered about, lest haply some one should be close to my side. But when I perceived that all the place was in stillness, I crept nearer to the tomb; and on the mound's edge I saw a lock of hair, freshly severed. [See http://www.4literature.net/Sophocles/Electra_Sophocles_/8.html]

Notes from Alcman,
Alcman was a Laconian of Messoa, a lyric poet who flourished in the 37th Olympiad (B.C. 631-625), when Ardys father of Alyattes was king of Lydia.

FRAGMENT 80
Strabo Geography 12. 580 :
There is mention of some Phrygian tribes which cannot be traced, as the Berecyntians; and Alcman says:
He piped a Phrygian tune Cerbesian.69

FRAGMENT 84
Scholiast on Theocritus 5. 83 :
[the Carneian Festival] : Praxilla says that this festival is so called from Carnus son of Zeus and Europa . . . but Alcman from a Trojan named Carneüs.

FRAGMENT 104
Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 624b :
[on the Phrygian “mode”] : This mode was first invented and practised by Phrygians, and that is why flute-players in Greece have Phrygian names like those of slaves, for instance Sambas, and Adon, and Telus, in Alcman.

Notes from Pausanius

Pausanias was the Greek writer who flourished in the 2nd century AD. His Description of Greece in ten books is a traveller's account of sights of historical and cultural interest in the Peloponnese and central Greece. He provides a comprehensive catalogue of temples and shrines in the region, as well as frequent discussions of local myth and cult practice. He could be considered the historian- cultural anthropologist of his age. We have extracted those paragraphs that indicate the nature of the worship of Greek gods and the cultural attributes that pertain thereto. Of relevance is the fact that most of the religious sanctuaries contained an abundance of wooden effigies, many of which had hands and faces of ivory, marble or, in some cases, stone. Many were painted with a black laquer finish. Of course he highlights the bronze statues and the temples, many of which are in a state of ruin or disrepair. He points out that the Roman emperor Nero confiscated over 500 statues from the sanctuary of Delphi. Our extracts are from http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1A.html.

[1.21.5] Among the votive offerings there is a Sauromatic breast plate. On seeing this a man will say that no less than Greeks are foreigners skilled in the arts. For the Sauromatae have no iron, neither mined by them selves nor yet imported. They have, in fact, no dealings at all with the foreigners around them. To meet this deficiency they have contrived inventions. In place of iron they use bone for their spear-blades, and cornel-wood for their bows and arrows, with bone points for the arrows. They throw a lasso round any enemy they meet, and then turning round their horses upset the enemy caught in the lasso.
[1.21.6] Their breastplates they make in the following fashion. Each man keeps many mares, since the land is not divided into private allotments, nor does it bear any thing except wild trees, as the people are nomads. These mares they not only use for war, but also sacrifice them to the local gods and eat them for food. Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as it were python scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have seen a pine-cone still green. He will not be mistaken if he liken the product from the hoof to the segments that are seen on the pine-cone. These pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of horses and oxen, and then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as those of the Greeks. For they can withstand blows of missiles and those struck in close combat.
[1.21.7] Linen breastplates are not so useful to fighters, for they let the iron pass through, if the blow be a violent one. They aid hunters, how ever, for the teeth of lions or leopards break off in them. You may see linen breastplates dedicated in other sanctuaries, notably in that at Gryneum, where there is a most beautiful grove of Apollo, with cultivated trees, and all those which, although they bear no fruit, are pleasing to smell or look upon.

[1.32.2] The Athenians have also statues of gods on their mountains. On Pentelicus is a statue of Athena, on Hymettus one of Zeus Hymettius. There are altars both of Zeus Rain-god and of Apollo Foreseer. On Parnes is a bronze Zeus Parnethius, and an altar to Zeus Semaleus (Sign-giving). There is on Parnes another altar, and on it they make sacrifice, calling Zeus sometimes Rain-god, sometimes Averter of Ills. Anchesmus is a mountain of no great size, with an image of Zeus Anchesmius.

Before the city of the Milesians is an island called Lade, and from it certain islets are detached. One of these they call the islet of Asterius, and say that Asterius was buried in it, and that Asterius was the son of Anax, and Anax the son of Earth. Now the corpse is not less than ten cubits.
[1.35.7] But what really caused me surprise is this. There is a small city of upper Lydia called The Doors of Temenus. There a crest broke away in a storm, and there appeared bones the shape of which led one to suppose that they were human, but from their size one would never have thought it. At once the story spread among the multitude that it was the corpse of Geryon, the son of Chrysaor, and that the seat also was his. For there is a man's seat carved on a rocky spur of the mountain. And a torrent they called the river Ocean, and they said that men ploughing met with the horns of cattle, for the story is that Geryon reared excellent cows.
[1.35.8] And when I criticized the account and pointed out to them that Geryon is at Gadeira, where there is, not his tomb, but a tree showing different shapes, the guides of the Lydians related the true story, that the corpse is that of Hyllus, a son of Earth, from whom the river is named. They also said that Heracles from his sojourning with Omphale called his son Hyllus after the river.

[2.5.3] The other stories about the river are current among both the Phliasians and the Sicyonians, for instance that its water is foreign and not native, in that the Maeander, descending from Celaenae through Phrygia and Caria, and emptying itself into the sea at Miletus, goes to the Peloponnesus and forms the Asopus. I remember hearing a similar story from the Delians, that the stream which they call Inopus comes to them from the Nile. Further, there is a story that the Nile itself is the Euphrates, which disappears into a marsh, rises again beyond Aethiopia and becomes the Nile.
[2.5.4] Such is the account I heard of the Asopus. When you have turned from the Acrocorinthus into the mountain road you see the Teneatic gate and a sanctuary of Eilethyia. The town called Tenea is just about sixty stades distant. The inhabitants say that they are Trojans who were taken prisoners in Tenedos by the Greeks, and were permitted by Agamemnon to dwell in their present home. For this reason they honor Apollo more than any other god.

SICYON
[2.7.2] When you have come from the Corinthian to the Sicyonian territory you see the tomb of Lycus the Messenian, whoever this Lycus may be; for I can discover no Messenian Lycus who practised the pentathlon15 or won a victory at Olympia. This tomb is a mound of earth, but the Sicyonians themselves usually bury their dead in a uniform manner. They cover the body in the ground, and over it they build a basement of stone upon which they set pillars. Above these they put something very like the pediment of a temple. They add no inscription, except that they give the dead man's name without that of his father and bid him farewell.

[2.10.2] From here is a way to a sanctuary of Asclepius. On passing into the enclosure you see on the left a building with two rooms. In the outer room lies a figure of Sleep, of which nothing remains now except the head. The inner room is given over to the Carnean Apollo; into it none may enter except the priests. In the portico lies a huge bone of a sea-monster, and after it an image of the Dream-god and Sleep, surnamed Epidotes (Bountiful), lulling to sleep a lion. Within the sanctuary on either side of the entrance is an image, on the one hand Pan seated, on the other Artemis standing.
[2.10.3] When you have entered you see the god, a beardless figure of gold and ivory made by Calamis.30 He holds a staff in one hand, and a cone of the cultivated pine in the other. The Sicyonians say that the god was carried to them from Epidaurus on a carriage drawn by two mules, that he was in the likeness of a serpent, and that he was brought by Nicagora of Sicyon, the mother of Agasicles and the wife of Echetimus. Here are small figures hanging from the roof. She who is on the serpent they say is Aristodama, the mother of Aratus, whom they hold to be a son of Asclepius.

[2.10.4] Such are the noteworthy things that this enclosure presented to me, and opposite is another enclosure, sacred to Aphrodite. The first thing inside is a statue of Antiope. They say that her sons were Sicyonians, and because of them the Sicyonians will have it that Antiope herself is related to themselves. After this is the sanctuary of Aphrodite, into which enter only a female verger, who after her appointment may not have intercourse with a man, and a virgin, called the Bath-bearer, holding her sacred office for a year. All others are wont to behold the goddess from the entrance, and to pray from that place.
[2.10.5] The image, which is seated, was made by the Sicyonian Canachus, who also fashioned the Apollo at Didyma of the Milesians, and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans. It is made of gold and ivory, having on its head a polos,31 and carrying in one hand a poppy and in the other an apple. They offer the thighs of the victims, excepting pigs; the other parts they burn for the goddess with juniper wood, but as the thighs are burning they add to the offering a leaf of the paideros…Afterwards Alexanor, the son of Machaon, the son of Asclepius, came to Sicyonia and built the sanctuary of Asclepius at Titane.
[2.11.6] The neighbors are chiefly servants of the god, and within the enclosure are old cypress trees. One cannot learn of what wood or metal the image is, nor do they know the name of the maker, though one or two attribute it to Alexanor himself. Of the image can be seen only the face, hands, and feet, for it has about it a tunic of white wool and a cloak. There is a similar image of Health; this, too, one cannot see easily because it is so surrounded with the locks of women, who cut them off and offer them to the goddess, and with strips of Babylonian raiment. With whichever of these a votary here is willing to propitiate heaven, the same instructions have been given to him, to worship this image which they are pleased to call Health.

[2.22.3] Now that the Tantalus is buried here who was the son of Thyestes or Broteas (both accounts are given) and married Clytaemnestra before Agamemnon did, I will not gainsay; but the grave of him who legend says was son of Zeus and Pluto – it is worth seeing – is on Mount Sipylus. I know because I saw it. Moreover, no constraint came upon him to flee from Sipylus, such as afterwards forced Pelops to run away when Ilus the Phrygian launched an army against him. But I must pursue the inquiry no further. The ritual performed at the pit hard by they say was instituted by Nicostratus, a native. Even at the present day they throw into the pit burning torches in honor of the Maid who is daughter of Demeter.

[2.22.5] Going on a little further you see the grave of Argus, reputed to be the son of Zeus and Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus. After these comes a temple of the Dioscuri. The images represent the Dioscuri themselves and their sons, Anaxis and Mnasinous, and with them are their mothers, Hilaeira and Phoebe. They are of ebony wood, and were made by Dipoenus and Scyllis.46 The horses, too, are mostly of ebony, but there is a little ivory also in their construction.
[2.22.6] Near the Lords is a sanctuary of Eilethyia, dedicated by Helen when, Theseus having gone away with Peirithous to Thesprotia, Aphidna had been captured by the Dioscuri and Helen was being brought to Lacedaemon. For it is said that she was with child, was delivered In Argos, and founded there the sanctuary of Eilethyia, giving the daughter she bore to Clytaemnestra, who was already wedded to Agamemnon, while she herself subsequently married Menelaus.

[2.26.8] There is other evidence that the god was born in Epidaurus for I find that the most famous sanctuaries of Asclepius had their origin from Epidaurus. In the first place, the Athenians, who say that they gave a share of their mystic rites to Asclepius, call this day of the festival Epidauria, and they allege that their worship of Asclepius dates from then. Again, when Archias, son of Aristaechmus, was healed in Epidauria after spraining himself while hunting about Pindasus, he brought the cult to Pergamus.
[2.26.9] From the one at Pergamus has been built in our own day the sanctuary of Asclepius by the sea at Smyrna. Further, at Balagrae of the Cyreneans there is an Asclepius called Healer, who like the others came from Epidaurus. From the one at Cyrene was founded the sanctuary of Asclepius at Lebene, in Crete. There is this difference between the Cyreneans and the Epidaurians, that whereas the former sacrifice goats, it is against the custom of the Epidaurians to do so.

[3.3.6] When Lichas arrived the Spartans were seeking the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle. Now Lichas inferred that they were buried in a smithy, the reason for this inference being this. Everything that he saw in the smithy he compared with the oracle from Delphi, likening to the winds the bellows, for that they too sent forth a violent blast, the hammer to the “stroke,” the anvil to the “counterstroke” to it, while the iron is naturally a “woe to man,” because already men were using iron in warfare. In the time of those called heroes the god would have called bronze a woe to man.
[3.3.7] Similar to the oracle about the bones of Orestes was the one afterwards given to the Athenians, that they were to bring back Theseus from Scyros to Athens otherwise they could not take Scyros. Now the bones of Theseus were discovered by Cimon the son of Miltiades, who displayed similar sharpness of wit, and shortly afterwards took Scyros.
[3.3.8] I have evidence that in the heroic age weapons were universally of bronze in the verses of Homer4 about the axe of Peisander and the arrow of Meriones. My statement is likewise confirmed by the spear of Achilles dedicated in the sanctuary of Athena at Phaselis, and by the sword of Memnon in the Nicomedian temple of Asclepius. The point and butt-spike of the spear and the whole of the sword are made of bronze. The truth of these statements I can vouch for.

[3.13.3] Carneus, whom they surname “of the House,” had honors in Sparta even before the return of the Heracleidae, his seat being in the house of a seer, Crius (Ram) the son of Theocles. The daughter of this Crius was met as she was filling her pitcher by spies of the Dorians, who entered into conversation with her, visited Crius and learned from him how to capture Sparta.
[3.13.4] The cult of Apollo Carneus has been established among all the Dorians ever since Carnus, an Acarnanian by birth, who was a seer of Apollo. When he was killed by Hippotes the son of Phylas, the wrath of Apollo fell upon the camp of the Dorians Hippotes went into banishment because of the bloodguilt, and from this time the custom was established among the Dorians of propitiating the Acarnanian seer. But this Carnus is not the Lacedaemonian Carneus of the House, who was worshipped in the house of Crius the seer while the Achaeans were still in possession of Sparta.
[3.13.5] The poetess Praxilla represents Carneus as the son of Europa, Apollo and Leto being his nurses. There is also another account of the name; in Trojan Ida there grew in a grove of Apollo cornel-trees, which the Greeks cut down to make the Wooden Horse. Learning that the god was wroth with them they propitiated him with sacrifices and named Apollo Carneus from the cornel-tree (craneia), a custom prevalent in the olden time making them transpose the r and the a.

[4.31.7] By Damophon too is the so-called Laphria at Messene. The cult came to be established among them in the following way: Among the people of Calydon, Artemis, who was worshipped by them above all the gods, had the title Laphria, and the Messenians who received Naupactus from the Athenians, being at that time close neighbors of the Aetolians, adopted her from the people of Calydon. I will describe her appearance in another place.32 The name Laphria spread only to the Messenians and to the Achaeans of Patrae.
[4.31.8] But all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus, and individuals hold her in honor above all the gods. The reason, in my view, is the renown of the Amazons, who traditionally dedicated the image, also the extreme antiquity of this sanctuary. Three other points as well have contributed to her renown, the size of the temple, surpassing all buildings among men, the eminence of the city of the Ephesians and the renown of the goddess who dwells there.

[4.32.3] There is also the tomb of Aristomenes here. They say that it is not a cenotaph, but when I asked whence and in what manner they recovered the bones of Aristomenes, they said that they sent to Rhodes for them, and that it was the god of Delphi who ordered it. They also instructed me in the nature of the rites carried out at the tomb. The bull which is to be offered to the dead man is brought to the tomb and bound to the pillar which stands upon the grave. Being fierce and unused to bonds he will not stand; and if the pillar is moved by his struggles and bounds, it is a good omen to the Messenians, but if the pillar is not moved the sign portends misfortune.
[4.32.4] They have it that Aristomenes was present at the battle of Leuctra, though no longer among men, and say that he helped the Thebans and was the chief cause of the Lacedaemonian disaster. I know that the Chaldaeans and Indian sages were the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and have been followed by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato the son of Ariston. If all are willing to accept this, this too cannot be denied, that his hatred for the Lacedaemonians was imparted to Aristomenes for all time.

[4.35.11] All these springs that had something wonderful to show I have seen myself. For I pass over the less wonderful that I know, and it is no great marvel to find water that is salt and harsh. But there are two other kinds. The water in the White Plain, as it is called, in Caria, by the village with the name Dascylou Come, is warm and sweeter than milk to drink. I know that Herodotus says that a spring of bitter water flows into the river Hypanis. We can assuredly admit the truth of his statement, when in our days at Dicaearchia (Puteoli), in the land of the Tyrrhenians, a hot spring has been found, so acid that in a few years it dissolved the lead through which its water passed.

[5.1.1] I. The Greeks who say that the Peloponnesus has five, and only five, divisions must agree that Arcadia contains both Arcadians and Eleans, that the second division belongs to the Achaeans, and the remaining three to the Dorians. Of the races dwelling in Peloponnesus the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. When the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old Aegialus, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other hand, have from the beginning to to the present time continued in possession of their own country.

[5.1.6] Epeius married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, and begat a daughter Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeius the following events also occurred. Oenomaus was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia.
[5.1.7] On the death of Oenomaus, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeius. The Eleans said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of' Hermes in Peloponnesus and to sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death of Myrtilus.

[5.10.3] Its height up to the pediment is sixty-eight feet, its breadth is ninety-five, its length two hundred and thirty. The architect was Libon, a native. The tiles are not of baked earth, but of Pentelic marble cut into the shape of tiles. The invention is said to be that of Byzes of Naxos, who they say made the images in Naxos on which is the inscription:–
To the offspring of Leto was I dedicated by Euergus,
A Naxian, son of Byzes, who first made tiles of stone.
This Byzes lived about the time of Alyattes the Lydian,21 when Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, reigned over the Medes

VOTIVE OFFERINGS IN THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS
[5.12.4] In Olympia there is a woollen curtain, adorned with Assyrian weaving and Phoenician purple, which was dedicated by Antiochus,30 who also gave as offerings the golden aegis with the Gorgon on it above the theater at Athens. This curtain is not drawn upwards to the roof as is that in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, but it is let down to the ground by cords.
[5.12.5] The offerings inside, or in the fore-temple include: a throne of Arimnestus, king of Etruria, who was the first foreigner to present an offering to the Olympic Zeus, and bronze horses of Cynisca, tokens of an Olympic victory. These are not as large as real horses, and stand in the fore-temple on the right as you enter. There is also a tripod, plated with bronze, upon which, before the table was made, were displayed the crowns for the victors.

[5.13.8] The altar of Olympic Zeus is about equally distant from the Pelopium and the sanctuary of Hera, but it is in front of both. Some say that it was built by Idaean Heracles, others by the local heroes two generations later than Heracles. It has been made from the ash of the thighs of the victims sacrificed to Zeus, as is also the altar at Pergamus. There is an ashen altar of Samian Hera not a bit grander than what in Attica the Athenians call “improvised hearths.”

[5.13.9] The first stage of the altar at Olympia, called prothysis, has a circumference of one hundred and twenty-five feet; the circumference of the stage on the prothysis is thirty-two feet; the total height of the altar reaches to twenty-two feet. The victims themselves it is the custom to sacrifice on the lower stage, the prothysis. But the thighs they carry up to the highest part of the altar and burn them there.
[5.13.10] The steps that lead up to the prothysis from either side are made of stone, but those leading from the prothysis to the upper part of the altar are, like the altar itself, composed of ashes. The ascent to the prothysis may be made by maidens, and likewise by women, when they are not shut out from Olympia, but men only can ascend from the prothysis to the highest part of the altar. Even when the festival is not being held, sacrifice is offered to Zeus by private individuals and daily33 by the Eleans.
[5.13.11] Every year the soothsayers, keeping carefully to the nineteenth day of the month Elaphius,34 bring the ash from the town-hall, and making it into a paste with the water of the Alpheius they daub the altar therewith. But never may the ash be made into paste with other water, and for this reason the Alpheius is thought to be of all rivers the dearest to Olympic Zeus. There is also an altar at Didyma of the Milesians, which Heracles the Theban is said by the Milesians to have made from the blood of the victims. But in later times the blood of the sacrifices has not made the altar excessively large.

[5.14.4] Now that I have finished my account of the greatest altar, let me proceed to describe all the altars in Olympia. My narrative will follow in dealing with them the order in which the Eleans are wont to sacrifice on the altars. They sacrifice to Hestia first, secondly to Olympic Zeus, going to the altar within the temple, thirdly to Zeus Laoetas and to Poseidon Laoetas. This sacrifice too it is usual to offer on one altar. Fourthly and fifthly they sacrifice to Artemis and to Athena, Goddess of Booty,
[5.14.5] sixthly to the Worker Goddess. The descendants of Pheidias, called Cleansers, have received from the Eleans the privilege of cleaning the image of Zeus from the dirt that settles on it, and they sacrifice to the Worker Goddess before they begin to polish the image. There is another altar of Athena near the temple, and by it a square altar of Artemis rising gently to a height.
[5.14.6] After the altars I have enumerated there is one on which they sacrifice to Alpheius and Artemis together. The cause of this Pindar,37 I think, intimates in an ode, and I give it38 in my account of Letrini. Not far from it stands another altar of Alpheius, and by it one of Hephaestus. This altar of Hephaestus some Eleans call the altar of Warlike Zeus. These same Eleans also say that Oenomaus used to sacrifice to Warlike Zeus on this altar whenever he was about to begin a chariot-race with one of the suitors of Hippodameia.
[5.14.7] After this stands an altar of Heracles surnamed Parastates (Assistant); there are also altars of the brothers of Heracles – Epimedes, Idas, Paeonaeus, and Iasus; I am aware, however, that the altar of Idas is called by others the altar of Acesidas. At the place where are the foundations of the house of Oenomaus stand two altars: one is of Zeus of the Courtyard, which Oenomaus appears to have had built himself, and the other of Zeus of the Thunderbolt, which I believe they built later, when the thunderbolt had struck the house of Oenomaus.

[5.14.10] On what is called the Gaeum (sanctuary of Earth) is an altar of Earth; it too is of ashes. In more ancient days they say that there was an oracle also of Earth in this place. On what is called the Stomium (Mouth) the altar to Themis has been built. All round the altar of Zeus Descender runs a fence; this altar is near the great altar made of the ashes. The reader must remember that the altars have not been enumerated in the order in which they stand, but the order followed by my narrative is that followed by the Eleans in their sacrifices. By the sacred enclosure of Pelops is an altar of Dionysus and the Graces in common; between them is an altar of the Muses, and next to these an altar of the Nymphs.

[5.15.10] Each month the Eleans sacrifice once on all the altars I have enumerated. They sacrifice in an ancient manner; for they burn on the altars incense with wheat which has been kneaded with honey, placing also on the altars twigs of olive, and using wine for a libation. Only to the Nymphs and the Mistresses are they not wont to pour wine in libation, nor do they pour it on the altar common to all the gods. The care of the sacrifices is given to a priest, holding office for one month, to soothsayers and libation-bearers, and also to a guide, a flute-player and the woodman.

[5.15.11] The traditional words spoken by them in the Town Hall at the libations, and the hymns which they sing, it were not right for me to introduce into my narrative. They pour libations, not only to the Greek gods, but also to the god in Libya, to Hera Ammonia and to Parammon, which is a surname of Hermes. From very early times it is plain that they used the oracle in Libya, and in the temple of Ammon are altars which the Eleans dedicated. On them are engraved the questions of the Eleans, the replies of the god, and the names of the men who came to Ammon from Elis. These are in the temple of Ammon.

TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN HERA CONT.

THE CHEST OF CYPSELUS
[5.17.5] There is also a chest made of cedar, with figures on it, some of ivory, some of gold, others carved out of the cedar-wood itself. It was in this chest that Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, was hidden by his mother when the Bacchidae were anxious to discover him after his birth. In gratitude for the saving of Cypselus, his descendants, Cypselids as they are called, dedicated the chest at Olympia. The Corinthians of that age called chests kypselai, and from this word, they say, the child received his name of Cypselus.
[5.17.6] On most of the figures on the chest there are inscriptions, written in the ancient characters. In some cases the letters read straight on, but in others the form of the writing is what the Greeks call bustrophedon.43 It is like this: at the end of the line the second line turns back, as runners do when running the double race. Moreover the inscriptions on the chest are written in winding characters difficult to decipher. Beginning our survey at the bottom we see in the first space of the chest the following scenes.

[5.17.7] Oenomaus is chasing Pelops, who is holding Hippodameia. Each of them has two horses, but those of Pelops have wings. Next is wrought the house of Amphiaraus, and baby Amphilochus is being carried by some old woman or other. In front of the house stands Eriphyle with the necklace, and by her are her daughters Eurydice and Demonassa, and the boy Alcmaeon naked.

[5.17.9] After the house of Amphiaraus come the games at the funeral of Pelias, with the spectators looking at the competitors. Heracles is seated on a throne, and behind him is a woman. There is no inscription saying who the woman is, but she is playing on a Phrygian, not a Greek, flute. Driving chariots drawn by pairs of horses are Pisus, son of Perieres, and Asterion, son of Cometas (Asterion is said to have been one of the Argonauts), Polydeuces, Admetus and Euphemus. The poets declare that
the last was a son of Poseidon and a companion of Jason on his voyage to Colchis. He it is who is winning the chariot-race.
Atlas too is supporting, just as the story has it, heaven and earth upon his shoulders; he is also carrying the apples of the Hesperides. A man holding a sword is coming towards Atlas. This everybody can see is Heracles, though he is not mentioned specially in the inscription, which reads:–
Here is Atlas holding heaven, but he will let go the apples.
[5.18.5] There is also Ares clad in armour and leading Aphrodite. The inscription by him is “Enyalius.” There is also a figure of Thetis as a maid; Peleus is taking hold of her, and from the hand of Thetis a snake is darting at Peleus. The sisters of Medusa, with wings, are chasing Perseus, who is flying. Only Perseus has his name inscribed on him.

[5.19.3] Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus, lies thrown to the ground under the feet at Helen. She is clothed in black, and the inscription upon the group is an hexameter line with the addition of a single word:–
The sons of Tyndareus are carrying of Helen, and are dragging Aethra from Athens.46
[5.19.4] Such is the way this line is constructed. Iphidamas, the son of Antenor, is lying, and Coon is fighting for him against Agamemnon. On the shield of Agamemnon is Fear, whose head is a lion's. The inscription above the corpse of Iphidamas runs:
Iphidamas, and this is Coon fighting for him.
The inscription on the shield of Agamemnon runs:
[5.19.5]
This is the Fear of mortals: he who holds him is Agamemnon.

[5.20.2] The table is made of ivory and gold, and is the work of Colotes.49 Colotes is said to have been a native of Heracleia, but specialists in the history of sculpture maintain that he was a Parian, a pupil of Pasiteles, who himself was a pupil of . . . There are figures of Hera, Zeus, the Mother of the gods, Hermes, and Apollo with Artemis. Behind is the disposition of the games.
[5.20.3] On one side are Asclepius and Health, one of his daughters; Ares too and Contest by his side; on the other are Pluto, Dionysus, Persephone and nymphs, one of them carrying a ball. As to the key (Pluto holds a key) they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom.

[5.22.1] XXII. These were the causes for which I found that these images were made. There are also images of Zeus dedicated by States and by individuals. There is in the Altis an altar near the entrance leading to the stadium. On it the Eleans do not sacrifice to any of the gods, but it is customary for the trumpeters and heralds to stand upon it when they compete. By the side of this altar has been built a pedestal of bronze, and on it is an image of Zeus, about six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt in either hand. It was dedicated by the people of Cynaetha. The figure of Zeus as a boy wearing the necklace is the votive offering of Cleolas, a Phliasian.
[5.22.2] By the side of what is called the Hippodamium is a semicircular stone pedestal, and on it are Zeus, Thetis, and Day entreating Zeus on behalf of her children. These are on the middle of the pedestal. There are Achilles and Memnon, one at either edge of the pedestal, representing a pair of combatants in position. There are other pairs similarly opposed, foreigner against Greek: Odysseus opposed to Helenus, reputed to be the cleverest men in the respective armies; Alexander and Menelaus, in virtue of their ancient feud; Aeneas and Diomedes, and Deiphobus and Ajax son of Telamon.

[5.23.6] By the chariot of Gelon stands an ancient Zeus holding a scepter which is said to be an offering of the Hyblaeans. There were two cities in Sicily called Hybla, one surnamed Gereatis and the other Greater, it being in fact the greater of the two. They still retain their old names, and are in the district of Catana. Greater Hybla is entirely uninhabited, but Gereatis is a village of Catana, with a sanctuary of the goddess Hyblaea which is held in honor by the Sicilians. The people of Gereatis, I think, brought the image to Olympia. For Philistus, the son of Archomenides, says that they were interpreters of portents and dreams, and more given to devotions than any other foreigners in Sicily.

[5.25.5] At the headland of Sicily that looks towards Libya and the south, called Pachynum, there stands the city Motye, inhabited by Libyans and Phoenicians. Against these foreigners of Motye war was waged by the Agrigentines, who, having taken from them plunder and spoils, dedicated at Olympia the bronze boys, who are stretching out their right hands in an attitude of prayer to the god. They are placed on the wall of the Altis, and I conjectured that the artist was Calamis, a conjecture in accordance with the tradition about them.70 Sicily is inhabited by the following races:
[5.25.6] Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed into it from Italy, while the Phrygians came from the river Scamander and the land of the Troad. The Phoenicians and Libyans came to the island on a joint expedition, and are settlers from Carthage. Such are the foreign races in Sicily. The Greeks settled there include Dorians and Ionians, with a small proportion of Phocians and of Attics.

[5.25.11] Not far from the offering of the Achaeans there is also a Heracles fighting with the Amazon, a woman on horseback, for her girdle. It was dedicated by Evagoras, a Zanclaean by descent, and made by Aristocles of Cydonia. Aristocles should be included amongst the most ancient sculptors, and though his date is uncertain, he was clearly born before Zancle took its present name of Messene.
[5.25.12] The Thasians, who are Phoenicians by descent, and sailed from Tyre, and from Phoenicia generally, together with Thasus, the son of Agenor, in search of Europa, dedicated at Olympia a Heracles, the pedestal as well as the image being of bronze. The height of the image is ten cubits, and he holds a club in his right hand and a bow in his left. They told me in Thasos that they used to worship the same Heracles as the Tyrians, but that afterwards, when they were included among the Greeks, they adopted the worship of Heracles the son of Amphitryon.
[5.26.7] By the smaller offerings of Micythus, that were made by Dionysius, are some of the exploits of Heracles, including what he did to the Nemean lion, the Hydra, the Hound of Hell, and the boar by the river Erymanthus. These were brought to Olympia by the people of Heracleia when they had overrun the land of the Mariandynians, their foreign neighbors. Heracleia is a city built on the Euxine sea, a colony of Megara, though the people of Tanagra in Boeotia joined in the settlement.
[5.27.11] Under the plane trees in the Altis, just about in the center of the enclosure, there is a bronze trophy, with an inscription upon the shield of the trophy, to the effect that the Eleans raised it as a sign that they had beaten the Lacedaemonians. It was in this battle that the warrior lost his life who was found lying in his armour when the roof of the Heraeum was being repaired in my time.
[5.27.12] The offering of the Mendeans in Thrace came very near to beguiling me into the belief that it was a representation of a competitor in the pentathlum. It stands by the side of Anauchidas of Elis, and it holds ancient jumping-weights. An elegiac couplet is written on its thigh:–
To Zeus, king of the gods, as first-fruits was I placed here
By the Mendeans, who reduced Sipte by might of hand.
Sipte seems to be a Thracian fortress and city. The Mendeans themselves are of Greek descent, coming from Ionia, and they live inland at some distance from the sea that is by the city of Aenus.
6.7.9] Next to the sons of Alcaenetus stand Gnathon, a Maenalian of Dipaea, and Lucinus of Elis. These too succeeded in beating the boys at boxing at Olympia. The inscription on his statue says that Gnathon was very young indeed when he won his victory. The artist who made the statue was Callicles of Megara.

[6.24.1] XXIV. One of the two ways from the gymnasium leads to the market-place, and to what is called the Umpires' Room; it is above the grave of Achilles, and by it the umpires are wont to go to the gymnasium. They enter before sunrise to match the runners, and at midday for the pentathlum and for such contests as are called heavy.
[6.24.2] The market-place of Elis is not after the fashion of the cities of Ionia and of the Greek cities near Ionia; it is built in the older manner,

Those who shared in the expedition of the Ionians were the following among the Greeks: some Thebans under Philotas, a descendant of Peneleus; Minyans of Orchomenus, because they were related to the sons of Codrus.
[7.1.6] The history of the Ionians in relation to the Achaeans I will give as soon as I have explained the reason why the inhabitants of Lacedaemon and Argos were the only Peloponnesians to be called Achaeans before the return of the Dorians. Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus, came from Phthiotis to Argos, and after their arrival became sons-in-law of Danaus, Architeles marrying Automate and Archander Scaea. A very clear proof that they settled in Argos is the fact that Archander named his son Metanastes (Settler).
[7.1.7] When the sons of Achaeus came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the inhabitants of these towns came to be called Achaeans. The name Achaeans was common to them; the Argives had the special name of Danai. On the occasion referred to, being expelled by the Dorians from Argos and Lacedaemon, the Achaeans themselves and their king Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, sent heralds to the Ionians, offering to settle among them without warfare. But the kings of the Ionians were afraid that, if the Achaeans united with them, Tisamenus would be chosen king of the combined people because of his manliness and noble lineage.

[7.2.4] There also took part all the Phocians except the Delphians, and with them Abantes from Euboea. Ships for the voyage were given to the Phocians by Philogenes and Damon, Athenians and sons of Euctemon, who themselves led the colony. When they landed in Asia they divided, the different parties attacking the different cities on the coast, and Neileus with his party made for Miletus.

MILETOS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
[7.2.5] The Milesians themselves give the following account of their earliest history. For two generations, they say, their land was called Anactoria, during the reigns of Anax, an aboriginal, and of Asterius his son; but when Miletus landed with an army of Cretans both the land and the city changed their name to Miletus. Miletus and his men came from Crete, fleeing from Minos, the son of Europa; the Carians, the former inhabitants of the land, united with the Cretans. But to resume.
[7.2.6] When the Ionians had overcome the ancient Milesians they killed every male, except those who escaped at the capture of the city, but the wives of the Milesians and their daughters they married.
The grave of Neileus is on the left of the road, not far from the gate, as you go to Didymi.

EPHESOS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
The sanctuary of Apollo at Didymi, and his oracle, are earlier than the immigration of the Ionians, while the cult of Ephesian Artemis is far more ancient still than their coming.
[7.2.7] Pindar, however, it seems to me, did not learn everything about the goddess, for he says that this sanctuary was founded by the Amazons during their campaign against Athens and Theseus.2 It is a fact that the women from the Thermodon, as they knew the sanctuary from of old, sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess both on this occasion and when they had fled from Heracles; some of them earlier still, when they had fled from Dionysus, having come to the sanctuary as suppliants. However, it was not by the Amazons that the sanctuary was founded, but by Coresus, an aboriginal, and Ephesus, who is thought to have been a son of the river Cayster, and from Ephesus the city received its name.
[7.2.8] The inhabitants of the land were partly Leleges, a branch of the Carians, but the greater number were Lydians. In addition there were others who dwelt around the sanctuary for the sake of its protection, and these included some women of the race of the Amazons.

COLONIZATION OF EPHESOS, HISTORY
But Androclus the son of Codrus (for he it was who was appointed king of the Ionians who sailed against Ephesus) expelled from the land the Leleges and Lydians who occupied the upper city. Those, however, who dwelt around the sanctuary had nothing to fear; they exchanged oaths of friendship with the Ionians and escaped warfare. Androclus also took Samos from the Samians, and for a time the Ephesians held Samos and the adjacent islands.
[7.2.9] But after that the Samians had returned to their own land, Androclus helped the people of Priene against the Carians. The Greek army was victorious, but Androclus was killed in the battle. The Ephesians carried off his body and buried it in their own land, at the spot where his tomb is pointed out at the present day, on the road leading from the sanctuary past the Olympieum to the Magnesian gate. On the tomb is a statue of an armed man.

ERYTHRAE, MYTHICAL HISTORY
[7.3.7] The Erythraeans say that they came originally from Crete with Erythrus the son of Rhadamanthus, and that this Erythrus was the founder of their city. Along with the Cretans there dwelt in the city Lycians, Carians and Pamphylians; Lycians because of their kinship with the Cretans, as they came of old from Crete, having fled along with Sarpedon; Carians because of their ancient friendship with Minos; Pamphylians because they too belong to the Greek race, being among those who after the taking of Troy wandered with Calchas.

COLONIZATION OF ERYTHRAE, HISTORY
The peoples I have enumerated occupied Erythrae when Cleopus the son of Codrus gathered men from all the cities of Ionia, so many from each, and introduced them as settlers among the Erythraeans.

COLONIZATION OF SMYRNA, HISTORY
[7.5.1] V. Smyrna, one of the twelve Aeolian cities, built on that site which even now they call the old city, was seized by Ionians who set out from Colophon and displaced the Aeolians; subsequently, however, the Ionians allowed the Smyrnaeans to take their place in the general assembly at Panionium. The modern city was founded by Alexander, the son of Philip, in accordance with a vision in a dream.
[7.5.2] It is said that Alexander was hunting on Mount Pagus, and that after the hunt was over he came to a sanctuary of the Nemeses, and found there a spring and a plane-tree in front of the sanctuary, growing over the water. While he slept under the plane-tree it is said that the Nemeses appeared and bade him found a city there and to remove into it the Smyrnaeans from the old city.
[7.5.3] So the Smyrnaeans sent ambassadors to Clarus to make inquiries about the circumstance, and the god made answer:–
Thrice, yes, four times blest will those men be
Who shall dwell in Pagus beyond the sacred Meles.
So they migrated of their own free will, and believe now in two Nemeses instead of one, saying that their mother is Night, while the Athenians say that the father of the goddess6 in Rhamnus is Ocean.

COLONIES OF IONIA
[7.5.4] The land of the Ionians has the finest possible climate, and sanctuaries such as are to be found nowhere else. First because of its size and wealth is that of the Ephesian goddess, and then come two unfinished sanctuaries of Apollo, the one in Branchidae, in Milesian territory, and the one at Clarus in the land of the Colophonians. Besides these, two temples in Ionia were burnt down by the Persians, the one of Hera in Samos and that of Athena at Phocaea. Damaged though they are by fire, I found them a wonder.
[7.5.5] You would be delighted too with the sanctuary of Heracles at Erythrae and with the temple of Athena at Priene, the latter because of its image and the former on account of its age. The image is like neither the Aeginetan, as they are called, nor yet the most ancient Attic images; it is absolutely Egyptian, if ever there was such. There was a wooden raft, on which the god set out from Tyre in Phoenicia. The reason for this we are not told even by the Erythraeans themselves.
[7.5.6] They say that when the raft reached the Ionian sea it came to rest at the cape called Mesate (Middle) which is on the mainland, just midway between the harbor of the Erythraeans and the island of Chios. When the raft rested off the cape the Erythraeans made great efforts, and the Chians no less, both being keen to land the image on their own shores.
[7.5.7] At last a man of Erythrae (his name was Phormio) who gained a living by the sea and by catching fish, but had lost his sight through disease, saw a vision in a dream to the effect that the women of Erythrae must cut off their locks, and in this way the men would, with a rope woven from the hair, tow the raft to their shores. The women of the citizens absolutely refused to obey the dream;
[7.5.8] but the Thracian women, both the slaves and the free who lived there, offered themselves to be shorn. And so the men of Erythrae towed the raft ashore. Accordingly no women except Thracian women are allowed within the sanctuary of Heracles, and the hair rope is still kept by the natives. The same people say that the fisherman recovered his sight and retained it for the rest of his life.
[7.5.9] There is also in Erythrae a temple of Athena Polias and a huge wooden image of her sitting on a throne; she holds a distaff in either hand and wears a firmament on her head. That this image is the work of Endoeus we inferred, among other signs, from the workmanship, and especially from the white marble images of Graces and Seasons that stand in the open before the entrance. A sanctuary too of Asclepius was made by the Smyrnaeans in my time between Mount Coryphe and a sea into which no other water flows.

[7.5.10] Ionia has other things to record besides its sanctuaries and its climate. There is, for instance, in the land of the Ephesians the river Cenchrius, the strange mountain of Pion and the spring Halitaea. The land of Miletus has the spring Biblis, of whose love the poets have sung. In the land of Colophon is the grove of Apollo, of ash-trees, and not far from the grove is the river Ales, the coldest river in Ionia.
[7.5.11] In the land of Lebedus are baths, which are both wonderful and useful. Teos, too, has baths at Cape Macria, some in the clefts of the rock, filled by the tide, others made to display wealth. The Clazomenians have baths (incidentally they worship Agamemnon) and a cave called the cave of the mother of Pyrrhus; they tell a legend about Pyrrhus the shepherd.
[7.5.12] The Erythraeans have a district called Calchis, from which their third tribe takes its name, and in Calchis is a cape stretching into the sea, and on it are sea baths, the most useful baths in Ionia. The Smyrnaeans have the river Meles, with its lovely water, and at its springs is the grotto, where they say that Homer composed his poems.

DYME
[7.17.5] To resume after my researches into Achaean history. The boundary between Achaia and Elis is the river Larisus, and by the river is a temple of Larisaean Athena; about thirty stades distant from the Larisus is Dyme, an Achaean city. This was the only Achaean city that in his wars Philip the son of Demetrius made subject to him, and for this reason Sulpicius, another Roman governor, handed over Dyme to be sacked by his soldiery. Afterwards Augustus annexed it to Patrae.
[7.17.6] Its more ancient name was Paleia, but the Ionians changed this to its modern name while they still occupied the city;

[7.17.8] A little before the city of Dyme there is, on the right of the road, the grave of Sostratus. He was a native youth, loved they say by Heracles, who outliving Sostratus made him his tomb and gave him some hair from his head as a primal offering. Even today there is a slab on the top of the mound, with a figure of Heracles in relief. I was told that the natives also sacrifice to Sostratus as to a hero.
[7.17.9] The people of Dyme have a temple of Athena with an extremely ancient image; they have as well a sanctuary built for the Dindymenian mother and Attis. As to Attis, I could learn no secret about him,36 but Hermesianax, the elegiac poet, says in a poem that he was the son of Galaus the Phrygian, and that he was a eunuch from birth. The account of Hermesianax goes on to say that, on growing up, Attis migrated to Lydia and celebrated for the Lydians the orgies of the Mother; that he rose to such honor with her that Zeus, being wroth at it,37 sent a boar to destroy the tillage of the Lydians.
[7.17.10] Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar, and it is consistent with this that the Gauls who inhabit Pessinus abstain from pork. But the current view about Attis is different, the local legend about him being this. Zeus, it is said, let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground, which in course of time sent up a demon, with two sexual organs, male and female. They call the demon Agdistis. But the gods, fearing38 Agdistis, cut off the male organ.
[7.17.11] There grew up from it an almond-tree with its fruit ripe, and a daughter of the river Sangarius, they say, took of the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child. A boy was born, and exposed, but was tended by a he-goat. As he grew up his beauty was more than human, and Agdistis fell in love with him. When he had grown up, Attis was sent by his relatives to Pessinus, that he might wed the king's daughter.
[7.17.12] The marriage-song was being sung, when Agdistis appeared, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals, as also did he who was giving him his daughter in marriage. But Agdistis repented of what he had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.
[7.17.13] These are the most popular forms of the legend of Attis.

CULT OF ARTEMIS LAPHRIA
[7.18.9] Most of the images out of Aetolia and from Acarnania were brought by Augustus' orders to Nicopolis, but to Patrae he gave, with other spoils from Calydon, the image of Laphria, which even in my time was still worshipped on the acropolis of Patrae. It is said that the goddess was surnamed Laphria after a man of Phocis, because the ancient image of Artemis was set up at Calydon by Laphrius, the son of Castalius, the son of Delphus.
[7.18.10] Others say that the wrath of Artemis against Oeneus weighed as time went on more lightly (elaphroteron) on the Calydonians, and they believe that this was why the goddess received her surname. The image represents her in the guise of a huntress; it is made of ivory and gold, and the artists were Menaechmus and Soldas of Naupactus, who, it is inferred, lived not much later than Canachus of Sicyon and Callon of Aegina.
[7.18.11] Every year too the people of Patrae celebrate the festival Laphria in honor of their Artemis, and at it they employ a method of sacrifice peculiar to the place. Round the altar in a circle they set up logs of wood still green, each of them sixteen cubits long. On the altar within the circle is placed the driest of their wood. Just before the time of the festival they construct a smooth ascent to the altar, piling earth upon the altar steps.
[7.18.12] The festival begins with a most splendid procession in honor of Artemis, and the maiden officiating as priestess rides last in the procession upon a car yoked to deer. It is, however, not till the next day that the sacrifice is offered, and the festival is not only a state function but also quite a popular general holiday. For the people throw alive upon the altar edible birds and every kind of victim as well; there are wild boars, deer and gazelles; some bring wolf-cubs or bear-cubs, others the full-grown beasts. They also place upon the altar fruit of cultivated trees.

[7.18.13] Next they set fire to the wood. At this point I have seen some of the beasts, including a bear, forcing their way outside at the first rush of the flames, some of them actually escaping by their strength. But those who threw them in drag them back again to the pyre. It is not remembered that anybody has ever been wounded by the beasts.

[7.20.3] On the way to the lower city there is a sanctuary of the Dindymenian Mother, and in it Attis too is worshipped. Of him they have no image to show; that of the Mother is of stone. In the marketplace is a temple of Olympian Zeus; the god himself is on a throne with Athena standing by it. Beyond the Olympian is an image of Hera and a sanctuary of Apollo. The god is of bronze, and naked. On his feet are sandals, and one foot stands upon the skull of an ox.

[7.20.7] As you leave the market-place of Patrae, where the sanctuary of Apollo is, at this exit is a gate, upon which stand gilt statues, Patreus, Preugenes, and Atherion; the two latter are represented as boys, because Patreus is a boy in age. Opposite the marketplace by this exit is a precinct and temple of Artemis, the Lady of the Lake.
[7.20.8] When the Dorians were now in possession of Lacedaemon and Argos, it is said that Preugenes, in obedience to a dream, stole from Sparta the image of our Lady of the Lake, and that he had as partner in his exploit the most devoted of his slaves. The image from Lacedaemon is usually kept at Mesoa, because it was to this place that it was originally brought by Preugenes. But when the festival of our Lady is being held, one of the slaves of the goddess comes from Mesoa bringing the ancient wooden image to the precinct in the city.
[7.20.9] Near this precinct the people of Patrae have other sanctuaries. These are not in the open, but there is an entrance to them through the porticoes. The image of Asclepius, save for the drapery, is of stone; Athena is made of ivory and gold. Before the sanctuary of Athena is the tomb of Preugenes. Every year they sacrifice to Preugenes as to a hero, and likewise to Patreus also, when the festival of our Lady is being held. Not far from the theater is a temple of Nemesis, and another of Aphrodite. The images are colossal and of white marble.

[7.21.12] Before the sanctuary of Demeter is a spring. On the side of this towards the temple stands a wall of stones, while on the outer side has been made a descent to the spring. Here there is an infallible oracle, not indeed for everything, but only in the case of sick folk. They tie a mirror to a fine cord and let it down, judging the distance so that it does not sink deep into the spring, but just far enough to touch the water with its rim.41 Then they pray to the goddess and burn incense, after which they look into the mirror, which shows them the patient either alive or dead.
[7.21.13] This water partakes to this extent of truth, but close to Cyaneae by Lycia, where there is an oracle of Apollo Thyrxeus, the water shows to him who looks into the spring all the things that he wants to behold. By the grove in Patrae are also two sanctuaries of Serapis. In one is the tomb of Aegyptus, the son of Belus. He is said by the people of Patrae to have fled to Aroe because of the misfortunes of his children and because he shuddered at the mere name of Argos, and even more through dread of Danaus.
[7.21.14] There is also at Patrae a sanctuary of Asclepius. This sanctuary is beyond the acropolis near the gate leading to Mesatis. The women of Patrae outnumber the men by two to one. These women are amongst the most charming in the world. Most of them gain a livelihood from the fine flax that grows in Elis, weaving from it nets for the head as well as dresses.

[7.22.3] Coming at eventide, the inquirer of the god, having burnt incense upon the hearth, filled the lamps with oil and lighted them, puts on the altar on the right of the image a local coin, called a “copper,” and asks in the ear of the god the particular question he wishes to put to him. After that he stops his ears and leaves the marketplace. On coming outside he takes his hands from his ears, and whatever utterance he hears he considers oracular.
[7.22.4] There is a similar method of divination practised at the sanctuary of Apis in Egypt. At Pharae there is also a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring is Hermes' stream, and the fish in it are not caught, being considered sacred to the god. Quite close to the image stand square stones, about thirty in number. These the people of Pharae adore, calling each by the name of some god. At a more remote period all the Greeks alike worshipped uncarved stones instead of images of the gods.

[7.24.2] By the sea at Aegium is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and after it one of Poseidon; there is also one of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter, and one to Zeus Homagyrius (Assembler). Here are images of Zeus, of Aphrodite and of Athena. The surname Assembler was given to Zeus because in this place Agamemnon assembled the most eminent men in Greece, in order that they might consult together how to make war on the empire of Priam. Among the claims of Agamemnon to renown is that he destroyed Troy and the cities around her44 with the forces that followed him originally, without any later reinforcements.

EARTHQUAKES OF HELICE, HISTORY
But the wrath of Poseidon visited them without delay; an earthquake promptly struck their land and swallowed up, without leaving a trace for posterity to see, both the buildings and the very site on which the city stood.
[7.24.7] Warnings, usually the same in all cases, are wont to be sent by the god before violent and far-reaching earthquakes. Either continuous storms of rain or else continuous droughts occur before earthquakes for an unusual length of time, and the weather is unseasonable. In winter it turns too hot, and in summer along with a tendency to haze the orb of the sun presents an unusual color, slightly inclining to red or else to black.
[7.24.8] Springs of water generally dry up; blasts of wind sometimes swoop upon the land and overturn the trees; occasionally great flames dart across the sky; the shapes of stars too appear such as have never been witnessed before, producing consternation in those that witness them; furthermore there is a violent rumbling of winds beneath the earth – these and many other warnings is the god wont to send before violent earthquakes occur.
[7.24.9] The shock itself is not of one fixed type, but the original inquirers into such matters and their pupils have been able to discover the following forms of earthquake. The mildest form – that is, if such a calamity admits of mitigation – is when there coincides with the original shock, which levels the buildings with the ground, a shock in the opposite direction, counteracting the first and raising up the buildings already knocked over.
[7.24.10] In this form of' earthquake pillars may be seen righting themselves which have been almost entirely uprooted, split walls coming together to their original position; beams, dislocated by the shock, go back to their places, and likewise channels, and such-like means of furthering the flow of water, have their cracks cemented better than they could be by human craftsmen. Now the second form of earthquake brings destruction to anything liable to it, and it throws over at once, as it were by a battering-ram, whatever meets the force of its impact.
[7.24.11] The most destructive kind of earthquake the experts are wont to liken to the symptoms of a man suffering from a non-intermittent fever, the breathing of such a patient being rapid and laboured. There are symptoms of this to be found in many parts of the body, especially at each wrist. In the same way, they say, the earthquake dives directly under buildings and shakes up their foundations, just as molehills come up from the bowels of the earth. It is this sort of shock alone that leaves no trace on the ground that men ever dwelt there.
[7.24.12] This was the type of earthquake, they say, that on the occasion referred to levelled Helice to the ground, and that it was accompanied by another disaster in the season of winter. The sea flooded a great part of the land, and covered up the whole of Helice all round. Moreover, the tide was so deep in the grove of Poseidon that only the tops of the trees remained visible. What with the sudden earthquake, and the invasion of the sea that accompanied it, the tidal wave swallowed up Helice and every man in it.

[7.24.13] A similar fate, though different in type,46 came upon a city on Mount Sipylus, so that it vanished into a chasm. The mountain split, water welled up from the fissure, and the chasm became a lake called Saloe. The ruins of the city were to be seen in the lake, until the water of the torrent hid them from view. The ruins of Helice too are visible, but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water.

CERYNEIA
[7.25.5] After Helice you will turn from the sea to the right and you will come to the town of Ceryneia. It is built on a mountain above the high road, and its name was given to it either by a native potentate or by the river Cerynites, which, flowing from Arcadia and Mount Ceryneia, passes through this part of Achaia. To this part came as settlers Mycenaeans from Argolis because of a catastrophe. Though the Argives could not take the wall of Mycenae by storm,
[7.25.6] built as it was like the wall of Tiryns by the Cyclopes, as they are called, yet the Mycenaeans were forced to leave their city through lack of provisions. Some of them departed for Cleonae, but more than half of the population took refuge with Alexander in Macedonia, to whom Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, entrusted the message to be given to the Athenians.48 The rest of the population came to Ceryneia, and the addition of the Mycenaeans made Ceryneia more powerful, through the increase of the population, and more renowned for the future.

[7.25.10] On descending from Bura towards the sea you come to a river called Buraicus, and to a small Heracles in a cave. He too is surnamed Buraicus, and here one can divine by means of a tablet and dice. He who inquires of the god offers up a prayer in front of the image, and after the prayer he takes four dice, a plentiful supply of which are placed by Heracles, and throws them upon the table. For every figure made by the dice there is an explanation expressly written on the tablet.50

[7.26.7] There are in a temple standing images of Asclepius, and elsewhere images of Serapis and of Isis, these too being of Pentelic marble. They worship most devoutly the Heavenly Goddess, but human beings must not enter her sanctuary. But into the sanctuary of the goddess they surname Syrian they enter on stated days, but they must submit beforehand to certain customary purifications, especially in the matter of diet.

[7.26.13] Between Aegeira and Pellene once stood a town, subject to the Sicyonians and called Donussa, which was laid waste by the Sicyonians;it is mentioned, they say, in a verse of Homer that occurs in the list of those who accompanied Agamemnon:–
And the men of Hyperesia and those of steep Donoessa. Hom. Il. 2.573
They go on to say that when Peisistratus collected the poems of Homer, which were scattered and handed down by tradition, some in one place and some in another, then either he or one of his colleagues perverted the name through ignorance.

7.27.3] Above the temple of Athena is a grove, surrounded by a wall, of Artemis surnamed Saviour, by whom they swear their most solemn oaths. No man may enter the grove except the priests. These priests are natives, chosen chiefly because of their high birth. Opposite the grove of the Saviour is a sanctuary of Dionysus surnamed Torch. In his honor they celebrate a festival called the Feast of Torches, when they bring by night firebrands into the sanctuary, and set up bowls of wine throughout the whole city.

[8.2.3] For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (Lycos).
[8.2.4] I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability. For the men of those days, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board; the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them – Aristaeus, Britomartis of Crete, Heracles the son of Alcmena, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and besides these Polydeuces and Castor.
[8.2.5] So one might believe that Lycaon was turned into a beast, and Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, into a stone. But at the present time, when sin has grown to such a height and has been spreading over every land and every city, no longer do men turn into gods, except in the flattering words addressed to despots, and the wrath of the gods is reserved until the sinners have departed to the next world.
[8.2.6] All through the ages, many events that have occurred in the past, and even some that occur to-day, have been generally discredited because of the lies built up on a foundation of fact. It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lycaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus, but that the change is not for life; if, when he is a wolf, he abstains from human flesh, after nine years he becomes a man again, but if he tastes human flesh he remains a beast for ever.
[8.2.7] Similarly too it is said that Niobe on Mount Sipylus sheds tears in the season of summer. I have also heard that the griffins have spots like the leopard, and that the Tritons speak with human voice, though others say that they blow through a shell that has been bored. Those who like to listen to the miraculous are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and so they ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood.

[8.3.5] But Oenotrus, the youngest of the sons of Lycaon, asked his brother Nyctimus for money and men and crossed by sea to Italy; the land of Oenotria received its name from Oenotrus who was its king. This was the first expedition despatched from Greece to found a colony, and if a man makes the most careful calculation possible he will discover that no foreigners either emigrated to another land before Oenotrus. In addition to all this male issue, Lycaon had a daughter Callisto. This Callisto (I repeat the current Greek legend) was loved by Zeus and mated with him. When Hera detected the intrigue she turned Callisto into a bear, and Artemis to please Hera shot the bear. Zeus sent Hermes with orders to save the child that Callisto bore in her womb,

[8.4.1] IV. After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas the son of Callisto came to the throne. He introduced the cultivation of crops, which he learned from Triptolemus, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other things besides, having learned the art of spinning from Adristas. After this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians.

[8.4.2] His wife, according to the legend, was no mortal woman but a Dryad nymph. For they used to call some nymphs Dryads, others Epimeliads, and others Naiads, and Homer in his poetry talks mostly of Naiad nymphs. This nymph they call Erato, and by her they say that Arcas had Azan, Apheidas and Elatus. Previously he had had Autolaus, an illegitimate son.

[8.4.3] When his sons grew up, Arcas divided the land between them into three parts, and one district was named Azania after Azan; from Azania, it is said, settled the colonists who dwell about the cave in Phrygia called Steunos and the river Pencalas. To Apheidas fell Tegea and the land adjoining, and for this reason poets too call Tegea “the lot of Apheidas.”

[8.4.8] After Aepytus Aleus came to the throne. For Agamedes and Gortys, the sons of Stymphalus, were three generations removed from Arcas, and Aleus, the son of Apheidas, two generations. Aleus built the old sanctuary in Tegea of Athena Alea, and made Tegea the capital of his kingdom. Gortys the son of Stymphalus founded the city Gortys on a river which is also called after him. The sons of Aleus were Lycurgus, Amphidamas and Cepheus; he also had a daughter Auge.
[8.4.9] Hecataeus says that this Auge used to have intercourse with Heracles when he came to Tegea. At last it was discovered that she had borne a child to Heracles, and Aleus, putting her with her infant son in a chest, sent them out to sea. She came to Teuthras, lord of the plain of the Caicus, who fell in love with her and married her. The tomb of Auge still exists at Pergamus above the Calcus; it is a mound of earth surrounded by a basement of stone and surmounted by a figure of a naked woman in bronze.

ARCADIA, HISTORY
THE UNTILLED PLAIN
[8.7.1] VII. After crossing into Mantinean country over Mount Artemisius you will come to a plain called the Untilled Plain, whose name well describes it, for the rain-water coming down into it from the mountains prevents the plain from being tilled; nothing indeed could prevent it from being a lake, were it not that the water disappears into a chasm in the earth.
[8.7.2] After disappearing here it rises again at Dine (Whirlpool). Dine is a stream of fresh water rising out of the sea by what is called Genethlium in Argolis. In olden times the Argives cast horses adorned with bridles down into Dine as an offering to Poseidon. Not only here in Argolis, but also by Cheimerium in Thesprotis, is there unmistakably fresh water rising up in the sea.
[8.7.3] A greater marvel still is the water that boils in the Maeander, which comes partly from a rock surrounded by the stream, and partly rises from the mud of the river. In front of Dicaearchia also, in the land of the Etruscans, there is water boiling in the sea, and an artificial island has been made through it, so that this water is not “untilled,”13 but serves for hot baths.

[8.9.7] Antinous too was deified by them; his temple is the newest in Mantineia. He was a great favorite of the Emperor Hadrian. I never saw him in the flesh, but I have seen images and pictures of him. He has honors in other places also, and on the Nile is an Egyptian city named after Antinous. He has won worship in Mantineia for the following reason. Antinous was by birth from Bithynium beyond the river Sangarius, and the Bithynians are by descent Arcadians of Mantineia.

[8.10.4] There is an old legend that a wave of sea-water rises up in the sanctuary. A like story is told by the Athenians about the wave on the Acropolis, and by the Carians living in Mylasa about the sanctuary of the god called in the native tongue Osogoa. But the sea at Phalerum is about twenty stades distant from Athens, and the port of Mylasa is eighty stades from the city. But at Mantineia the sea rises after a very long distance, and quite plainly through the divine will.

OLD MANTINEIA & MAERA
[8.12.5] In addition to the roads mentioned there are two others, leading to Orchomenus. On one is what is called the stadium of Ladas, where Ladas practised his running, and by it a sanctuary of Artemis, and on the right of the road is a high mound of earth. It is said to be the grave of Penelope, but the account of her in the poem called Thesprotis is not in agreement with this saying.
[8.12.6] For in it the poet says that when Odysseus returned from Troy he had a son Ptoliporthes by Penelope. But the Mantinean story about Penelope says that Odysseus convicted her of bringing paramours to his home, and being cast out by him she went away at first to Lacedaemon, but afterwards she removed from Sparta to Mantineia, where she died.
[8.12.7] Adjoining this grave is a plain of no great size, and on the plain is a mountain whereon still stand the ruins of old Mantineia. To-day the place is called Ptolis. Advancing a little way to the north of it you come to the spring of Alalcomeneia, and thirty stades from Ptolis are the ruins of a village called Maera, with the grave of Maera, if it be really the case that Maera was buried here and not in Tegean land. For probably the Tegeans, and not the Mantineans, are right when they say that Maera, the daughter of Atlas, was buried in their land. Perhaps, however, the Maera who came to the land of Mantineia was another, a descendant of Maera, the daughter of Atlas.

MT ANCHISIA
[8.12.8] There still remains the road leading to Orchomenus, on which are Mount Anchisia and the tomb of Anchises at the foot of the mountain. For when Aeneas was voyaging to Sicily, he put in with his ships to Laconia, becoming the founder of the cities Aphrodisias and Etis; his father Anchises for some reason or other came to this place and died there, where Aeneas buried him. This mountain they call Anchisia after Anchises.
[8.12.9] The probability of this story is strengthened by the fact that the Aeolians who to-day occupy Troy nowhere point out a tomb of Anchises in their own land. Near the grave of Anchises are the ruins of a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and at Anchisiae is the boundary between Mantineia and Orchomenus.

ORCHOMENUS
[8.13.1] XIII. In the territory of Orchomenus, on the left of the road from Anchisiae, there is on the slope of the mountain the sanctuary of Artemis Hymnia. The Mantineans, too, share it . . . a priestess also and a priest. It is the custom for these to live their whole lives in purity, not only sexual but in all respects, and they neither wash nor spend their lives as do ordinary people, nor do they enter the home of a private man. I know that the “entertainers” of the Ephesian Artemis live in a similar fashion, but for a year only, the Ephesians calling them Essenes. They also hold an annual festival in honor of Artemis Hymnia.
[8.14.10] They still sacrifice to Iphicles as to a hero, and of the gods the people of Pheneus worship most Hermes, in whose honor they celebrate the games called Hermaea; they have also a temple of Hermes, and a stone image, made by an Athenian, Eucheir the son of Eubulides. Behind the temple is the grave of Myrtilus. The Greeks say that he was the son of Hermes, and that he served as charioteer to Oenomaus. Whenever a man arrived to woo the daughter of Oenomaus, Myrtilus craftily drove on the mares, while Oenomaus on the course shot down the wooer when he came near.
[8.14.11] Myrtilus himself, too, was in love with Hippodameia, but his courage failing him he shrank from the competition and served Oenomaus as his charioteer. At last, it is said, he proved a traitor to Oenomaus, being induced thereto by an oath sworn by Pelops that he would let him be with Hippodameia for one night. So when reminded of his oath Pelops threw him out of the ship. The people of Pheneus say that the body of Myrtilus was cast ashore by the tide, that they took it up and buried it, and that every year they sacrifice to him by night as to a hero.
[8.14.12] It is plain that Pelops did not make a long coasting voyage, but only sailed from the mouth of the Alpheius to the harbor of Elis. So the Sea of Myrto is obviously not named after Myrtilus, the son of Hermes, as it begins at Euboea and reaches the Aegaean by way of the uninhabited island of Helene. I think that a probable account is given by the antiquarians of Euboea, who say that the sea is named after a woman called Myrto.

[8.15.1] XV. The people of Pheneus have also a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Eleusinian, and they perform a ritual to the goddess, saying that the ceremonies at Eleusis are the same as those established among themselves. For Naus, they assert, came to them because of an oracle from Delphi, being a grandson of Eumolpus. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian has been set up Petroma, as it is called, consisting of two large stones fitted one to the other.
[8.15.2] When every other year they celebrate what they call the Greater Rites, they open these stones. They take from out them writings that refer to the rites, read them in the hearing of the initiated, and return them on the same night. Most Pheneatians, too, I know, take an oath by the Petroma in the most important affairs.
[8.15.3] On the top is a sphere, with a mask inside of Demeter Cidaria. This mask is put on by the priest at the Greater Rites, who for some reason or other beats with rods the Folk Underground. The Pheneatians have a story that even before Naus arrived the wanderings of Demeter brought her to their city also. To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only.

[8.16.3] The grave of Aepytus I was especially anxious to see, because Homer27 in his verses about the Arcadians makes mention of the tomb of Aepytus. It is a mound of earth of no great size, surrounded by a circular base of stone. Homer naturally was bound to admire it, as he had never seen a more noteworthy tomb, just as he compares the dance worked by Hephaestus on the shield of Achilles to a dance made by Daedalus, because he had never seen more clever workmanship.
[8.16.4] I know many wonderful graves, and will mention two of them, the one at Halicarnassus and one in the land of the Hebrews. The one at Halicarnassus was made for Mausolus, king of the city, and it is of such vast size, and so notable for all its ornament, that the Romans in their great admiration of it call remarkable tombs in their country “Mausolea.”
[8.16.5] The Hebrews have a grave, that of Helen, a native woman, in the city of Jerusalem, which the Roman Emperor razed to the ground. There is a contrivance in the grave whereby the door, which like all the grave is of stone, does not open until the year brings back the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the door, which, after a short interval, shuts itself. This happens at that time, but should you at any other try to open the door you cannot do so; force will not open it, but only break it down.

[8.17.6] As you go from Pheneus to the west, the left road leads to the city Cleitor, while on the right is the road to Nonacris and the water of the Styx. Of old Nonacris was a town of the Arcadians that was named after the wife of Lycaon. When I visited it, it was in ruins, and most of these were hidden. Not far from the ruins is a high cliff; I know of none other that rises to so great a height. A water trickles down the cliff, called by the Greeks the water of the Styx.
[8.18.1] XVIII. Hesiod in the Theogony29 – for there are some who assign this hexameter poem to Hesiod – speaks of Styx as the daughter of Ocean and the wife of Pallas. Men say that Linus too gives a like account in his verses, though when I read these they struck me as altogether spurious.

[8.18.4] The water trickling down the cliff by the side of Nonacris falls first to a high rock, through which it passes and then descends into the river Crathis. Its water brings death to all, man and beast alike. It is said too that it once brought death even upon goats, which drank of the water first; later on all the wonderful properties of the water were learnt.
[8.18.5] For glass, crystal, murrhine vessels, other articles men make of stone, and pottery, are all broken by the water of the Styx, while things of horn or of bone, with iron, bronze, lead, tin, silver and electrum, are all corroded by this water. Gold too suffers just like all the other metals, and yet gold is immune to rust, as the Lesbian poetess bears witness and is shown by the metal itself.

[8.24.5] There is also a legend that Heracles at the command of Eurystheus hunted by the side of the Erymanthus a boar that surpassed all others in size and in strength. The people of Cumae among the Opici say that the boar's tusks dedicated in their sanctuary of Apollo are those of the Erymanthian boar, but the saying is altogether improbable.

[8.24.11] That the Echinades islands have not been made mainland as yet by the Achelous is due to the Aetolian people, who have been driven from their homes and all their land has been laid waste. Accordingly, as Aetolia remains untilled, the Achelous does not bring as much mud upon the Echinades as it otherwise would do. My reasoning is confirmed by the fact that the Maeander, flowing through the land of the Phrygians and Carians, which is ploughed up each year, has turned to mainland in a short time the sea that once was between Priene and Miletus.

[8.26.3] As you go down to the land of Elis from Heraea, at a distance of about fifteen stades from Heraea you will cross the Ladon, and from it to the Erymanthus is a journey of roughly twenty stades. The boundary between Heraea and the land of Elis is according to the Arcadians the Erymanthus, but the people of Elis say that the grave of Coroebus bounds their territory.

[8.27.5] The Arcadians for the most part obeyed the general resolution and assembled promptly at Megalopolis. But the people of Lycaea, Tricoloni, Lycosura and Trapezus, but no other Arcadians, repented and, being no longer ready to abandon their ancient cities, were, with the exception of the last, taken to Megalopolis by force against their will,
[8.27.6] while the inhabitants of Trapezus departed altogether from the Peloponnesus, such of them as were left and were not immediately massacred by the exasperated Arcadians. Those who escaped with their lives sailed away to Pontus and were welcomed by the citizens of Trapezus on the Euxine as their kindred, as they bore their name and came from their mother-city. The Lycosurians, although they had disobeyed, were nevertheless spared by the Arcadians because of Demeter and the Mistress, in whose sanctuary they had taken refuge.

TEUTHIS
[8.28.4] Adjoining the land of Theisoa is a village called Teuthis, which in old days was a town. In the Trojan war the inhabitants supplied a general of their own. His name according to some was Teuthis, according to others Ornytus. When the Greeks failed to secure favorable winds to take them from Aulis, but were shut in for a long time by a violent gale, Teuthis quarrelled with Agamemnon and was about to lead the Arcadians under his command back home again.
[8.28.5] Whereupon, they say, Athena in the guise of Melas, the son of Ops, tried to turn Teuthis aside from his journey home. But Teuthis, his wrath swelling within him, struck with his spear the thigh of the goddess, and actually did lead his army back from Aulis. On his return to his native land the goddess appeared to him in a vision with a wound in her thigh. After this a wasting disease fell on Teuthis, and its people, alone of the Arcadians, suffered from famine.
[8.28.6] Later, oracles were delivered to them from Dodona, telling them what to do to appease the goddess, and in particular they had an image of Athena made with a wound in the thigh. This image I have myself seen, with its thigh swathed in a purple bandage. There are also at Teuthis sanctuaries of Aphrodite and Artemis.

[8.30.5] Before the temple of the Mother is no statue, but I found still to be seen the pedestals on which statues once stood. An inscription in elegiacs on one of the pedestals says that the statue was that of Diophanes, the son of Diaeus, the man who first united the whole Peloponnesus into what was named the Achaean League.

[8.30.8] In the marketplace of that city, behind the enclosure sacred to Lycaean Zeus, is the figure of a man carved in relief on a slab, Polybius, the son of Lycortas. Elegiac verses are inscribed upon it saying that he roamed over every land and every sea, and that he became the ally of the Itomans and stayed their wrath against the Greek nation. This Polybius wrote also a history of the Romans, including how they went to war with Carthage, what the cause of the war was, and how at last, not before great dangers had been run, Scipio . . . whom they name Carthaginian, because he put an end to the war and razed Carthage to the ground.
[8.30.9] Whenever the Romans obeyed the advice of Polybius, things went well with them, but they say that whenever they would not listen to his instructions they made mistakes. All the Greek cities that were members of the Achaean League got permission from the Itomans that Polybius should draw up constitutions for them and frame laws. On the left of the portrait-statue of Polybius is the Council Chamber.

[8.31.1] XXXI. At the other end, the western, of the portico is an enclosure sacred to the Great Goddesses. The Great Goddesses are Demeter and the Maid, as I have already explained in my account of Messenia,44 and the Maid is called Saviour by the Arcadians. Carved in relief before the entrance are, on one side Artemis, on the other Asclepius and Health.

[8.33.2] For Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and Nineveh, where was the royal palace of the Assyrians, are utterly ruined and desolate; while Boeotian Thebes, once deemed worthy to be the head of the Greek people, why, its name includes only the acropolis and its few inhabitants. Of the opulent places in the ancient world, Egyptian Thebes and Minyan Orchomenus are now less prosperous than a private individual of moderate means, while Delos, once the common market of Greece, has no Delian inhabitant, but only the men sent by the Athenians to guard the sanctuary.
[8.33.3] At Babylon the sanctuary of Belus still is left, but of the Babylon that was the greatest city of its time under the sun nothing remains but the wall. The case of Tiryns in the Argolid is the same. These places have been reduced by heaven to nothing. But the city of Alexander in Egypt, and that of Seleucus on the Orontes, that were founded but yesterday, have reached their present size and prosperity because fortune favours them.

[8.37.3] The actual images of the goddesses, Mistress and Demeter, the throne on which they sit, along with the footstool under their feet, are all made out of one piece of stone. No part of the drapery, and no part of the carvings about the throne, is fastened to another stone by iron or cement, but the whole is from one block. This stone was not brought in by them, but they say that in obedience to a dream they dug up the earth within the enclosure and so found it. The size of both images just about corresponds to the image of the Mother at Athens.

[8.37.4] These too are works of Damophon. Demeter carries a torch in her right hand; her other hand she has laid upon the Mistress. The Mistress has on her knees a staff and what is called the box, which she holds in her right hand. On both sides of the throne are images. By the side of Demeter stands Artemis wrapped in the skin of a deer, and carrying a quiver on her shoulders, while in one hand she holds a torch, in the other two serpents; by her side a bitch, of a breed suitable for hunting, is lying down.

It is said that in days of old this god also gave oracles, and that the nymph Erato became his prophetess, she who wedded Arcas, the son of Callisto.
[8.37.12] They also remember verses of Erato, which I too myself have read. Here is an altar of Ares, and there are two images of Aphrodite in a temple, one of white marble, and the other, the older, of wood. There are also wooden images of Apollo and of Athena. Of Athena a sanctuary also has been made.
[8.38.1] XXXVIII. A little farther up is the circuit of the wall of Lycosura, in which there are a few inhabitants. Of all the cities that earth has ever shown, whether on mainland or on islands, Lycosura is the oldest, and was the first that the sun beheld; from it the rest of mankind have learned how to make them cities.
[8.38.5] There is on Mount Lycaeus a sanctuary of Pan, and a grove of trees around it, with a race-course in front of which is a running-track. Of old they used to hold here the Lycaean games. Here there are also bases of statues, with now no statues on them. On one of the bases an elegiac inscription declares that the statue was a portrait of Astyanax, and that Astyanax was of the race of Arceas.
[8.38.10] One, falling into the sea by the Echinadian islands, flows through Acarnania and Aetolia, and is said by Homer in the Iliad53 to be the prince of all rivers. Another Achelous, flowing from Mount Sipylus, along with the mountain also, he takes occasion to mention in connection with his account of Niobe.54 The third river called the Achelous is the one by Mount Lycaeus.

[8.39.6] The image of Hermes in the gymnasium is like to one dressed in a cloak; but the statue does not end in feet, but in the square shape. A temple also of Dionysus is here, who by the inhabitants is surnamed Acratophorus, but the lower part of the image cannot be seen for laurel-leaves and ivy. As much of it as can be seen is painted . . . with cinnabar to shine. It is said to be found by the Iberians along with the gold.

[8.42.1] XLII. The second mountain, Mount Elaius, is some thirty stades away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black. The Phigalians accept the account of the people of Thelpusa about the mating of Poseidon and Demeter, but they assert that Demeter gave birth, not to a horse, but to the Mistress, as the Arcadians call her.

[8.42.2] Afterwards, they say, angry with Poseidon and grieved at the rape of Persephone, she put on black apparel and shut herself up in this cavern for a long time. But when all the fruits of the earth were perishing, and the human race dying yet more through famine, no god, it seemed, knew where Demeter was in hiding,
[8.42.3] until Pan, they say, visited Arcadia. Roaming from mountain to mountain as he hunted, he came at last to Mount Elaius and spied Demeter, the state she was in and the clothes she wore. So Zeus learnt this from Pan, and sent the Fates to Demeter, who listened to the Fates and laid aside her wrath, moderating her grief as well. For these reasons, the Phigalians say, they concluded that this cavern was sacred to Demeter and set up in it a wooden image.
[8.42.4] The image, they say, was made after this fashion. It was seated on a rock, like to a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts. Her tunic reached right to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, on the other a dove. Now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who is learned in traditions. They say that they named her Black because the goddess had black apparel.
[8.42.11] It was mainly to see this Demeter that I came to Phigalia. I offered no burnt sacrifice to the goddess, that being a custom of the natives. But the rule for sacrifice by private persons, and at the annual sacrifice by the community of Phigalia, is to offer grapes and other cultivated fruits, with honeycombs and raw wool still full of its grease. These they place on the altar built before the cave, afterwards pouring oil over them.
[8.43.4] He also took away from the Brigantes in Britain the greater part of their territory, because they too had begun an unprovoked war on the province of Genunia, a Roman dependency. The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task. As to his gifts of money to Greeks, and to such non-Greeks as needed it, and his buildings in Greece, Ionia, Carthage and Syria, others have written of them most exactly.

[8.44.3] About twenty stades away from Athenaeum are ruins of Asea, and the hill that once was the citadel has traces of fortifications to this day. Some five stades from Asea are the sources of the Alpheius and of the Eurotas, the former a little distance from the road, the latter just by the road itself. Near the source of the Alpheius is a temple of the Mother of the Gods without a roof, and two lions made of stone.
[8.48.1] XLVIII. The market-place is in shape very like a brick, and in it is a temple of Aphrodite called “in brick,” with a stone image. There are two slabs; on one are represented in relief Antiphanes, Crisus, Tyronidas and Pyrrhias, who made laws for the Tegeans, and down to this day receive honors for it from them. On the other slab is represented Iasius, holding a horse, and carrying in his right hand a branch of palm. It is said that Iasius won a horse-race at Olympia, at the time when Heracles the Theban celebrated the Olympian festival.
[8.48.2] The reason why at Olympia the victor receives a crown of wild-olive I have already explained in my account of Elis63; why at Delphi the crown is of bay I shall make plain later.64 At the Isthmus the pine, and at Nemea celery became the prize to commemorate the sufferings of Palaemon and Archemorus. At most games, however, is given a crown of palm, and at all a palm is placed in the right hand of the victor.
[8.50.1] L. As the Achaeans now turned their gaze on Philopoemen and placed in him all their hopes, he succeeded in changing the equipment of those serving in their infantry. They had been carrying short javelins and oblong shields after the fashion of the Celtic “door” or the Persian “wicker” 69 Philopoemen, however, persuaded them to put on breast-plates and greaves, and also to use Argolic shields70 and long spears.
[8.53.11] On the left of the road as you go from Tegea to Laconia there is an altar of Pan, and likewise one of Lycaean Zeus. The foundations, too, of sanctuaries are still there. These altars are two stades from the wall; and about seven stades farther on is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Lady of the Lake, with an image of ebony. The fashion of the workmanship is what the Greeks call Aeginetan. Some ten stades farther on are the ruins of a temple of Artemis Cnaceatis.
[9.3.2] So Zeus followed the advice of Cithaeron. Hera heard the news at once, and at once appeared on the scene. But when she came near the wagon and tore away the dress from the image, she was pleased at the deceit, on finding it a wooden image and not a bride, and was reconciled to Zeus. To commemorate this reconciliation they celebrate a festival called Daedala, because the men of old time gave the name of daedala to wooden images. My own view is that this name was given to wooden images before Daedalus, the son of Palamaon, was born at Athens, and that he did not receive this name at birth, but that it was a surname afterwards given him from the daedala.
[9.3.4] Not far from Alalcomenae is a grove of oaks. Here the trunks of the oaks are the largest in Boeotia. To this grove come the Plataeans, and lay out portions of boiled flesh. They keep a strict watch on the crows which flock to them, but they are not troubled at all about the other birds. They mark carefully the tree on which a crow settles with the meat he has seized. They cut down the trunk of the tree on which the crow has settled, and make of it the daedalum; for this is the name that they give to the wooden image also.
[9.5.1] V. The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners.
[9.5.2] When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.
[9.5.3] In the time of Cadmus, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Sparti, namely, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Udaeus; but it was Echion who, for his great valor, was preferred by Cadmus to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being. When Cadnius migrated to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, Polydorus his son got the kingdom.
Homer, however, makes no mention in his poetry of Amphion's singing, and how he built the wall to the music of his harp. Amphion won fame for his music, learning from the Lydians themselves the Lydian mode, because of his relationship to Tantalus, and adding three strings to the four old ones.
[9.5.15] On the death of Thersander, when a second expedition was being mustered to fight Alexander at Troy, Peneleos was chosen to command it, because Tisamenus, the son of Thersander, was not yet old enough. When Peneleos was killed by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, Tisamenus was chosen king, who was the son of Thersander and of Demonassa, the daughter of Amphiaraus. The Furies of Laius and Oedipus did not vent their wrath on Tisamenus, but they did on his son Autesion, so that, at the bidding of the oracle, he migrated to the Dorians.

[9.8.4] In the circuit of the ancient wall of Thebes were gates seven in number, and these remain to-day. One got its name, I learned, from Electra, the sister of Cadmus, and another, the Proetidian, from a native of Thebes. He was Proetus, but I found it difficult to discover his date and lineage. The Neistan gate, they say, got its name for the following reason. The last of the harp's strings they call nete, and Amphion invented it, they say, at this gate. I have also heard that the son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion, was named Neis, and that after him was this gate called.
[9.11.4] Here is a sanctuary of Heracles. The image, of white marble, is called Champion, and the Thebans Xenocritus and Eubius were the artists. But the ancient wooden image is thought by the Thebans to be by Daedalus, and the same opinion occurred to me. It was dedicated, they say, by Daedalus himself, as a thank-offering for a benefit. For when he was fleeing from Crete in small vessels which he had made for himself and his son Icarus, he devised for the ships sails, an invention as yet unknown to the men of those times, so as to take advantage of a favorable wind and outsail the oared fleet of Minos. Daedalus himself was saved,
[9.11.5] but the ship of Icarus is said to have overturned, as he was a clumsy helmsman. The drowned man was carried ashore by the current to the island, then without a name, that lies off Samos. Heracles came across the body and recognized it, giving it burial where even to-day a small mound still stands to Icarus on a promontory jutting out into the Aegean. After this Icarus are named both the island and the sea around it.
[9.11.7] Adjoining the sanctuary of Heracles are a gymnasium and a race-course, both being named after the god. Beyond the Chastiser stone is an altar of Apollo surnamed God of Ashes; it is made out of the ashes of the victims. The customary mode of divination here is from voices, which is used by the Smyrnaeans, to my knowledge, more than by any other Greeks. For at Smyrna also there is a sanctuary of Voices outside the wall and beyond the city.
[9.12.2] Now the oracle of the god had said that Cadmus and the host with him were to make their dwelling where the cow was going to sink down in weariness. So this is one of the places that they point out. Here there is in the open an altar and an image of Athena, said to have been dedicated by Cadmus. Those who think that the Cadmus who came to the Theban land was an Egyptian, and not a Phoenician, have their opinion contradicted by the name of this Athena, because she is called by the Phoenician name of Onga, and not by the Egyptian name of Sais.
[9.12.5] There is a statue of Pronomus, a very great favorite with the people for his playing on the flute. For a time flute-players had three forms of the flute. On one they played Dorian music; for Phrygian melodies flutes of a different pattern were made; what is called the Lydian mode was played on flutes of a third kind. It was Pronomus who first devised a flute equally suited for every kind of melody, and was the first to play on the same instrument music so vastly different in form.
[9.13.4] Here heaven sent signs to the Lacedaemonian people and to Cleombrotus personally.14 The Lacedaemonian kings were accompanied on their expeditions by sheep, to serve as sacrifices to the gods and to give fair omens before battles. The flocks were led on the march by she-goats, called katoiades by the herdsmen. On this occasion, then, the wolves dashed on the flock, did no harm at all to the sheep, but killed the goats called katoiades.
[9.23.6] About fifteen stades away from the city on the right is the sanctuary of Ptoan Apollo. We are told by Asius in his epic that Ptous, who gave a surname to Apollo and the name to the mountain, was a son of Athamas by Themisto. Before the expedition of the Macedonians under Alexander, in which Thebes was destroyed, there was here an oracle that never lied. Once too a mail of Europus, of the name of Mys, who was sent by Mardonius, inquired of the god in his own language, and the god too gave a response, not in Greek but in the Carian speech.
[9.25.3] There is a river called Dirce after the wife of Lycus. The story goes that Antiope was ill-treated by this Dirce, and therefore the children of Antiope put Dirce to death. Crossing the river you reach the ruins of the house of Pindar, and a sanctuary of the Mother Dindymene. Pindar dedicated the image, and Aristomedes and Socrates, sculptors of Thebes, made it. Their custom is to open the sanctuary on one day in each year, and no more. It was my fortune to arrive on that day, and I saw the image, which, like the throne, is of Pentelic marble.
[9.29.6] So her portrait is here, and after it is Linus on a small rock worked into the shape of a cave. To Linus every year they sacrifice as to a hero before they sacrifice to the Muses. It is said that this Linus was a son of Urania and Amphimarus, a son of Poseidon, that he won a reputation for music greater than that of any contemporary or predecessor, and that Apollo killed him for being his rival in singing.
[9.29.7] On the death of Linus, mourning for him spread, it seems, to all the foreign world, so that even among the Egyptians there came to be a Linus song, in the Egyptian language called Maneros. Of the Greek poets, Homer shows that he knew that the sufferings of Linus were the theme of a Greek song when he says that Hephaestus, among the other scenes he worked upon the shield of Achilles, represented a boy harpist singing the Linus song:–
In the midst of them a boy on a clear-toned lyre
Played with great charm, and to his playing sang of beautiful Linus.29 Hom. Il. 18.569-70
[9.29.8] Pamphos, who composed the oldest Athenian hymns, called him Oetolinus (Linus doomed) at the time when the mourning for Linus was at its height. Sappho of Lesbos, who learnt the name of Oetolinus from the epic poetry of Pamphos, sang of both Adonis and Oetolinus together. The Thebans assert that Linus was buried among them, and that after the Greek defeat at Chaeroneia, Philip the son of Amyntas, in obedience to a vision in a dream, took up the bones of Linus and conveyed them to Macedonia;
[9.30.3] Hesiod too sits holding a harp upon his knees, a thing not at all appropriate for Hesiod to carry, for his own verses30 make it clear that he sang holding a laurel wand. As to the age of Hesiod and Homer, I have conducted very careful researches into this matter, but I do not like to write on the subject, as I know the quarrelsome nature of those especially who constitute the modern school of epic criticism.
[9.30.4] By the side of Orpheus the Thracian stands a statue of Telete, and around him are beasts of stone and bronze listening to his singing. There are many untruths believed by the Greeks, one of which is that Orpheus was a son of the Muse Calliope, and not of the daughter of Pierus, that the beasts followed him fascinated by his songs, and that he went down alive to Hades to ask for his wife from the gods below. In my opinion Orpheus excelled his predecessors in the beauty of his verse, and reached a high degree of power because he was believed to have discovered mysteries, purification from sins, cures of diseases and means of averting divine wrath.
[9.31.4] The Boeotians dwelling around Helicon hold the tradition that Hesiod wrote nothing but the Works, and even of this they reject the prelude to the Muses, saying that the poem begins with the account of the Strifes.31 They showed me also a tablet of lead where the spring is, mostly defaced by time, on which is engraved the Works.
[9.31.5] There is another tradition, very different from the first, that Hesiod wrote a great number of poems; the one on women, the one called the Great Eoeae, the Theogony, the poem on the seer Melampus, the one on the descent to Hades of Theseus and Perithous, the Precepts of Chiron, professing to be for the instruction of Achilles, and other poems besides the Works and Days. These same Boeotians say that Hesiod learnt seercraft from the Acarnanians, and there are extant a poem called Mantica (Seercraft), which I myself have read, and interpretations of portents.
[9.35.6] Who it was who first represented the Graces naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped. At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Graces of gold, the work of Bupalus; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Grace, painted by Apelles. At Pergamus likewise, in the chamber of Attalus, are other images of Graces made by Bupalus;
[9.35.7] and near what is called the Pythium there is a portrait of Graces, painted by Pythagoras the Parian. Socrates too, son of Sophroniscus, made images of Graces for the Athenians, which are before the entrance to the Acropolis. All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly to-day sculptors and painters represent Graces naked.
[9.36.4] Phlegyas had no sons, and Chryses succeeded to the throne, a son of Poseidon by Chrysogeneia, daughter of Almus. This Chryses had a son called Minyas, and after him the people over whom he ruled are still called Minyans. The revenues that Minyas received were so great that he surpassed his predecessors in wealth, and he was the first man we know of to build a treasury to receive his riches.
[9.36.5] The Greeks appear apt to regard with greater wonder foreign sights than sights at home. For whereas distinguished historians have described the Egyptian pyramids with the minutest detail, they have not made even the briefest mention of the treasury of Minyas and the walls of Tiryns, though these are no less marvellous.
[9.36.6] Minyas had a son Orchomenus, in whose reign the city was called Orchomenus and the men Orchomenians. Nevertheless, they continued to bear the additional name of Minyans, to distinguish them from the Orchomenians in Arcadia. To this Orchomenus during his kingship came Hyettus from Argos, who was an exile because of the slaying of Molurus, son of Arisbas, whom he caught with his wedded wife and killed. Orchomenus assigned to him such of the land as is now around the village Hyettus, and the land adjacent to this.
[9.38.2] They have also a fountain worth seeing, and go down to it to fetch water. The treasury of Minyas, a wonder second to none either in Greece itself or elsewhere, has been built in the following way. It is made of stone; its shape is round, rising to a rather blunt apex; they say that the highest stone is the keystone of the whole building.
[9.38.3] There are graves of Minyas and Hesiod. They say that they thus recovered the bones of Hesiod. A pestilence fell on men and beasts, so that they sent envoys to the god. To these, it is said, the Pythian priestess made answer that to bring the bones of Hesiod from the land of Naupactus to the land of Orchomenus was their one and only remedy. Whereupon the envoys asked a further question, where in the land of Naupactus they would find the bones; to which the Pythian priestess answered again that a crow would indicate to them the place.

[9.38.8] It is not likely either that the Orchomenians would not have discovered the chasm, and, breaking down the work put up by Heracles, have given back to the Gephisus its ancient passage, since right down to the Trojan war they were a wealthy people. There is evidence in my favour in the passage of Homer where Achilles replies to the envoys from Agamemnon:–
Not even the wealth that comes to Orchomenus, Hom. Il. 9.381
a line that clearly shows that even then the revenues coming to Orchomenus were large.
[9.39.5] What happens at the oracle is as follows. When a man has made up his mind to descend to the oracle of Trophonius, he first lodges in a certain building for an appointed number of days, this being sacred to the good Spirit and to good Fortune. While he lodges there, among other regulations for purity he abstains from hot baths, bathing only in the river Hercyna. Meat he has in plenty from the sacrifices, for he who descends sacrifices to Trophonius himself and to the children of Trophonius, to Apollo also and Cronus, to Zeus surnamed King, to Hera Charioteer, and to Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonius.
[9.39.6] At each sacrifice a diviner is present, who looks into the entrails of the victim, and after an inspection prophesies to the person descending whether Trophonius will give him a kind and gracious reception. The entrails of the other victims do not declare the mind of Trophonius so much as a ram, which each inquirer sacrifices over a pit on the night he descends, calling upon Agamedes. Even though the previous sacrifices have appeared propitious, no account is taken of them unless the entrails of this ram indicate the same; but if they agree, then the inquirer descends in good hope. The procedure of the descent is this.
[9.39.7] First, during the night he is taken to the river Hercyna by two boys of the citizens about thirteen years old, named Hermae, who after taking him there anoint him with oil and wash him. It is these who wash the descender, and do all the other necessary services as his attendant boys. After this he is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other.
[9.39.8] Here he must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent. After looking at the image which they say was made by Daedalus (it is not shown by the priests save to such as are going to visit Trophonius), having seen it, worshipped it and prayed, he proceeds to the oracle, dressed in a linen tunic, with ribbons girding it, and wearing the boots of the country.
[9.39.9] The oracle is on the mountain, beyond the grove. Round it is a circular basement of white marble, the circumference of which is about that of the smallest threshing floor, while its height is just short of two cubits. On the basement stand spikes, which, like the cross-bars holding them together, are of bronze, while through them has been made a double door. Within the enclosure is a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry.
[9.39.10] The shape of this structure is like that of a bread-oven. Its breadth across the middle one might conjecture to be about four cubits, and its depth also could not be estimated to extend to more than eight cubits. They have made no way of descent to the bottom, but when a man comes to Trophonius, they bring him a narrow, light ladder. After going down he finds a hole between the floor and the structure. Its breadth appeared to be two spans, and its height one span.
[9.39.11] The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley-cakes kneaded with honey, thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows, trying hard to get his knees into the hole. After his knees the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, just as the largest and most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. After this those who have entered the shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way in all cases, but by sight sometimes and at other times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first.
[9.39.12] They say that no one who has made the descent has been killed, save only one of the bodyguard of Demetrius. But they declare that he performed none of the usual rites in the sanctuary, and that he descended, not to consult the god but in the hope of stealing gold and silver from the shrine. It is said that the body of this man appeared in a different place, and was not cast out at the sacred mouth. Other tales are told about the fellow, but I have given the one most worthy of consideration.
[9.39.13] After his ascent from Trophonius the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the chair of Memory, which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with Good Fortune and the Good Spirit. Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him.
[9.39.14] What I write is not hearsay; I have myself inquired of Trophonius and seen other inquirers. Those who have descended into the shrine of Trophonius are obliged to dedicate a tablet on which is written all that each has heard or seen. The shield also of Aristomenes is still preserved here. Its story I have already given in a former part of my work.39
9.40.11] Of the gods, the people of Chaeroneia honor most the scepter which Homer says42 Hephaestus made for Zeus, Hermes received from Zeus and gave to Pelops, Pelops left to Atreus, Atreus to Thyestes, and Agamemnon had from Thyestes. This scepter, then, they worship, calling it Spear. That there is something peculiarly divine about this scepter is most clearly shown by the fame it brings to the Chaeroneans.
[9.41.1] XLI. Poets have sung, and the tradition of men has followed them, that Hephaestus made many works of art, but none is authentic except only the scepter of Agamemnon. However, the Lycians in Patara show a bronze bowl in their temple of Apollo, saying that Telephus dedicated it and Hephaestus made it, apparently in ignorance of the fact that the first to melt bronze were the Samians Theodorus and Rhoecus.
[9.41.2] The Achaeans of Patrae assert indeed that Hephaestus made the chest brought by Eurypylus from Troy, but they do not actually exhibit it to view. In Cyprus is a city Amathus, in which is an old sanctuary of Adonis and Aphrodite. Here they say is dedicated a necklace given originally to Harmonia, but called the necklace of Eriphyle, because it was the bribe she took to betray her husband. It was dedicated at Delphi by the sons of Phegeus (how they got it I have already related in my history of Arcadia),43 but it was carried off by the tyrants of Phocis.

DELPHI, MYTHICAL HISTORY
[10.5.5] From here the high road to Delphi becomes both steeper and more difficult for the walker. Many and different are the stories told about Delphi, and even more so about the oracle of Apollo. For they say that in the earliest times the oracular seat belonged to Earth, who appointed as prophetess at it Daphnis, one of the nymphs of the mountain.
[10.5.6] There is extant among the Greeks an hexameter poem, the name of which is Eumolpia, and it is assigned to Musaeus, son of Antiophemus. In it the poet states that the oracle belonged to Poseidon and Earth in common; that Earth gave her oracles herself, but Poseidon used Pyrcon as his mouthpiece in giving responses. The verses are these:–
Forthwith the voice of the Earth-goddess uttered a wise word,
And with her Pyrcon, servant of the renowned Earth-shaker. [Musaeus], Eumolpia
They say that afterwards Earth gave her share to Themis, who gave it to Apollo as a gift. It is said that he gave to Poseidon Calaureia, that lies off Troezen, in exchange for his oracle.
[10.5.7] I have heard too that shepherds feeding their flocks came upon the oracle, were inspired by the vapor, and prophesied as the mouthpiece of Apollo. The most prevalent view, however, is that Phemonoe was the first prophetess of the god, and first sang in hexameter verse. Boeo, a native woman who composed a hymn for the Delphians, said that the oracle was established for the god by comers from the Hyperboreans, Olen and others, and that he was the first to prophesy and the first to chant the hexameter oracles.

[10.6.1] VI. They say that the oldest city was founded here by Parnassus, a son of Cleodora, a nymph. Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one they say was the god Poseidon, the human father being Cleopompus. After this Parnassus were named, they say, both the mountain and also the Parnassian glen. Augury from flying birds was, it is said, a discovery of Parnassus.
[10.6.4] Others maintain that Castalius, an aboriginal, had a daughter Thyia, who was the first to be priestess of Dionysus and celebrate orgies in honor of the god. It is said that later on men called after her Thyiads all women who rave in honor of Dionysus. At any rate they hold that Delphus was a son of Apollo and Thyia. Others say that his mother was Melaena, daughter of Cephisus.
[10.7.1] VII. It seems that from the beginning the sanctuary at Delphi has been plotted against by a vast number of men. Attacks were made against it by this Euboean pirate, and years afterwards by the Phlegyan nation; furthermore by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, by a portion of the army of Xerxes, by the Phocian chieftains, whose attacks on the wealth of the god were the longest and fiercest, and by the Gallic invaders. It was fated too that Delphi was to suffer from the universal irreverence of Nero, who robbed Apollo of five hundred bronze statues, some of gods, some of men.
[10.7.5] On that occasion they also offered for the first time prizes for athletes, the competitions being the same as those at Olympia, except the four-horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added to the contests running-races for boys, the long course and the double course. At the second Pythian Festival they no longer offered prizes for events, and hereafter gave a crown for victory. On this occasion they no longer included singing to the flute, thinking that the music was ill-omened to listen to. For the tunes of the flute were most dismal, and the words sung to the tunes were lamentations.
[10.8.6] When you enter the city you see temples in a row. The first of them was in ruins, and the one next to it had neither images nor statues. The third had statues of a few Roman emperors; the fourth is called the temple of Athena Forethought. Of its two images the one in the fore-temple is a votive offering of the Massiliots, and is larger than the one inside the temple. The Massiliots are a colony of Phocaea in Ionia, and their city was founded by some of those who ran away from Phocaea when attacked by Harpagus the Persian. They proved superior to the Carthaginians in a sea war, acquired the territory they now hold, and reached great prosperity.
[10.8.7] The votive offering of the Massiliots is of bronze. The gold shield given to Athena Forethought by Croesus the Lydian was said by the Delphians to have been stolen by Philomelus. Near the sanctuary of Forethought is a precinct of the hero Phylacus. This Phylacus is reported by the Delphians to have defended them at the time of the Persian invasion.

[10.10.6] The bronze horses and captive women dedicated by the Tarentines were made from spoils taken from the Messapians, a non-Greek people bordering on the territory of Tarentum, and are works of Ageladas the Argive. Tarentum is a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and its founder was Phalanthus, a Spartan. On setting out to found a colony Phalanthus received an oracle from Delphi, declaring that when he should feel rain under a cloudless sky (aethra), he would then win both a territory and a city.

[10.10.7] At first he neither examined the oracle himself nor informed one of his interpreters, but came to Italy with his ships. But when, although he won victories over the barbarians, he succeeded neither in taking a city nor in making himself master of a territory, he called to mind the oracle, and thought that the god had foretold an impossibility. For never could rain fall from a clear and cloudless sky. When he was in despair, his wife, who had accompanied him from home, among other endearments placed her husband's head between her knees and began to pick out the lice. And it chanced that the wife, such was her affection, wept as she saw her husband's fortunes coming to nothing.
[10.10.8] As her tears fell in showers, and she wetted the head of Phalanthus, he realized the meaning of the oracle, for his wife's name was Aethra. And so on that night he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast. They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon by a nymph of the country, and that after this hero were named both the city and the river. For the river, just like the city, is called Taras.
[10.11.3] The people of Lipara too dedicated statues to commemorate a naval victory over the Etruscans. These people were colonists from Cnidus, and the leader of the colony is said to have been a Cnidian, whose name was Pentathlus according to a statement made by the Syracusan Antiochus, son of Xenophanes, in his history of Sicily. He says also that they built a city on Cape Pachynum in Sicily, but were hard pressed in a war with the Elymi and Phoenicians, and driven out, but occupied the islands, from which they expelled the inhabitants if they were not still uninhabited, still called, as they are called by Homer,20 the Islands of Aeolus.

THE SIBYLS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
[10.12.1] XII. There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.
[10.12.2] Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless she too was clearly born before the Trojan war, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe, and that for her sake the Greeks would capture Troy. The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister, and sometimes that she is his daughter.
[10.12.3] These statements she made in her poetry when in a frenzy and possessed by the god. Elsewhere in her oracles she states that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs of Ida, while her father was a human. These are the verses:–
I am by birth half mortal, half divine;
An immortal nymph was my mother, my father an eater of corn;
On my mother's side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red
Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus.
[10.12.4] Even to-day there remain on Trojan Ida the ruins of the city Marpessus, with some sixty inhabitants. All the land around Marpessus is reddish and terribly parched, so that the light and porous nature of Ida in this place is in my opinion the reason why the river Aidoneus sinks into the ground, rises to sink once more, finally disappearing altogether beneath the earth. Marpessus is two hundred and forty stades distant from Alexandria in the Troad.
[10.12.5] The inhabitants of this Alexandria say that Herophile became the attendant of the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and that on the occasion of Hecuba's dream she uttered the prophecy which we know was actually fulfilled. This Sibyl passed the greater part of her life in Samos, but she also visited Clarus in the territory of Colophon, Delos and Delphi. Whenever she visited Delphi, she would stand on this rock and sing her chants.
[10.12.6] However, death came upon her in the Troad, and her tomb is in the grove of the Sminthian with these elegiac verses inscribed upon the tomb-stone:–
Here I am, the plain-speaking Sibyl of Phoebus,
Hidden beneath this stone tomb.
A maiden once gifted with voice, but now for ever voiceless,
By hard fate doomed to this fetter.
But I am buried near the nymphs and this Hermes,
Enjoying in the world below a part of the kingdom I had then.
The Hermes stands by the side of the tomb, a square-shaped figure of stone. On the left is water running down into a well, and the images of the nymphs.
[10.12.7] The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it, and that she was a daughter of Theodorus, a shepherd of the district, and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans.
[10.12.8] The next woman to give oracles in the same way, according to Hyperochus of Cumae, a historian, was called Demo, and came from Cumae in the territory of the Opici. The Cumaeans can point to no oracle given by this woman, but they show a small stone urn in a sanctuary of Apollo, in which they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl.
[10.12.9] Later than Demo there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.
[10.12.10] Phaennis, daughter of a king of the Chaonians, and the Peleiae (Doves) at Dodona also gave oracles under the inspiration of a god, but they were not called by men Sibyls. To learn the date of Phaennis and to read her oracles . . . for Phaennis was born when Antiochus was establishing his kingship immediately after the capture of Demetrius.23 The Peleiades are said to have been born still earlier than Phemonoe, and to have been the first women to chant these verses:–
Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be; O mighty Zeus.
Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of earth as Mother.
[10.12.11] It is said that the men who uttered oracles were Euclus of Cyprus, the Athenians Musaeus, son of Antiophemus, and Lycus, son of Pandion, and also Bacis, a Boeotian who was possessed by nymphs. I have read the oracles of all these except those of Lycus.
These are the women and men who, down to the present day, are said to have been the mouthpiece by which a god prophesied. But time is long, and perhaps similar things may occur again.
[10.13.5] The Thessalians too of Pharsalus dedicated an Achilles on horseback, with Patroclus running beside his horse: the Macedonians living in Dium, a city at the foot of Mount Pieria, the Apollo who has taken hold of the deer; the people of Cyrene, a Greek city in Libya, the chariot with an image of Ammon in it. The Dorians of Corinth too built a treasury, where used to be stored the gold from Lydia.24
[10.13.10] The Tarentines sent yet another tithe to Delphi from spoils taken from the Peucetii, a non-Greek people. The offerings are the work of Onatas the Aeginetan, and Ageladas the Argive, and consist of statues of footmen and horsemen – Opis, king of the Iapygians, come to be an ally to the Peucetii. Opis is represented as killed in the fighting, and on his prostrate body stand the hero Taras and Phalanthus of Lacedaemon, near whom is a dolphin. For they say that before Phalanthus reached Italy, he suffered shipwreck in the Crisaean sea, and was brought ashore by a dolphin.
[10.14.1] XIV. The axes were dedicated by Periclytus, son of Euthymachus, a man of Tenedos, and allude to an old story. Cycnus, they say, was a son of Poseidon, and ruled as king in Colonae, a city in the Troad situated opposite the island Leucophrys.
[10.14.3] The young people came safely to the island Leucophrys, and the island was given its present name from Tennes. Cycnus, however, was not to remain for ever ignorant of the trick, and sailed to his son to confess his ignorance and to ask for pardon for his mistake. He put in at the island and fastened the cables of his ship to something – a rock or a tree – but Tennes in a passion cut them adrift with an axe.
[10.14.4] For this reason a by-word has arisen, which is used of those who make a stern refusal: “So and so has cut whatever it may be with an axe of Tenedos.” The Greeks say that while Tennes was defending his country he was killed by Achilles. In course of time weakness compelled the people of Tenedos to merge themselves with the Alexandrians on the Troad mainland.
[10.15.1] XV. A gilt statue of Phryne was made by Praxiteles, one of her lovers, but it was Phryne herself who dedicated the statue. The offerings next to Phryne include two images of Apollo, one dedicated from Persian spoils by the Epidaurians of Argolis, the other dedicated by the Megarians to commemorate a victory over the Athenians at Nisaea. The Plataeans have dedicated an ox, an offering made at the time when, in their own territory, they took part, along with the other Greeks, in the defence against Mardonius, the son of Gobryas. Then there are another two images of Apollo, one dedicated by the citizens of Heracleia on the Euxine, the other by the Amphictyons when they fined the Phocians for tilling the territory of the god.
[10.15.2] The second Apollo the Delphians call Sitalcas, and he is thirty-five cubits high. The Aetolians have statues of most of their generals, and images of Artemis, Athena and two of Apollo, dedicated after their conclusion of the war against the Gauls. That the Celtic army would cross from Europe to Asia to destroy the cities there was prophesied by Phaennis in her oracles a generation before the invasion occurred:–
[10.15.3]
Then verily, having crossed the narrow strait of the Hellespont,
The devastating host of the Gauls shall pipe; and lawlessly
They shall ravage Asia; and much worse shall God do
To those who dwell by the shores of the sea
For a short while. For right soon the son of Cronos
Shall raise them a helper, the dear son of a bull reared by Zeus,
Who on all the Gauls shall bring a day of destruction.
By the son of a bull she meant Attalus, king of Pergamus, who was also styled bull-horned by an oracle.

[10.16.1] XVI. Of the offerings sent by the Lydian kings I found nothing remaining except the iron stand of the bowl of Alyattes. This is the work of Glaucus the Chian, the man who discovered how to weld iron. Each plate of the stand is fastened to another, not by bolts or rivets, but by the welding, which is the only thing that fastens and holds together the iron.
[10.16.2] The shape of the stand is very like that of a tower, wider at the bottom and rising to a narrow top. Each side of the stand is not solid throughout, but the iron cross-strips are placed like the rungs of a ladder. The upright iron plates are turned outwards at the top, so forming a seat for the bowl.
[10.16.3] What is called the Omphalus (Navel) by the Delphians is made of white marble, and is said by the Delphians to be the center of all the earth. Pindar28 in one of his odes supports their view.

[10.16.7] I learnt a very strange thing that happened to the Liparaeans in a war with the Etruscans. For the Liparaeans were bidden by the Pythian priestess to engage the Etruscans with the fewest possible ships. So they put out against the Etruscans with five triremes. Their enemies, refusing to admit that their seamanship was unequal to that of the Liparaeans, went out to meet them with an equal number of ships. These the Liparaeans captured, as they did a second five that came out against them, overcoming too a third squadron of five, and likewise a fourth. So they dedicated at Delphi images of Apollo equal in number to the ships that they had captured.
[10.17.1] XVII. Of the non-Greeks in the west, the people of Sardinia have sent a bronze statue of him after whom they are called. In size and prosperity Sardinia is the equal of the most celebrated islands. What the ancient name was that the natives give it I do not know, but those of the Greeks who sailed there to trade called it Ichnussa, because the shape of the island is very like a man's footprint (ichnos). Its length is one thousand one hundred and twenty stades, and its breadth extends to four hundred and twenty.

SARDINIA, MYTHICAL HISTORY
[10.17.2] The first sailors to cross to the island are said to have been Libyans. Their leader was Sardus, son of Maceris, the Maceris surnamed Heracles by the Egyptians and Libyans. Maceris himself was celebrated chiefly for his journey to Delphi, but Sardus it was who led the Libyans to Ichnussa, and after him the island was renamed. However, the Libyan army did not expel the aboriginals, who received the invaders as settlers through compulsion rather than in goodwill. Neither the Libyans nor the native population knew how to build cities. They dwelt in scattered groups, where chance found them a home in cabins or caves.
[10.17.3] Years after the Libyans, there came to the island from Greece Aristaeus and his followers. Aristaeus is said to have been a son of Apollo and Cyrene, and they say that, deeply grieved by the fate of Actaeon, and vexed alike with Boeotia and the whole of Greece, he migrated to Sardinia.
[10.17.4] Others think that Daedalus too ran away from Camicus on this occasion, because of the invasion of the Cretans, and took a part in the colony that Aristaeus led to Sardinia. But it is nonsense to think that Daedalus, a contemporary of Oedipus, king of Thebes, had a part in a colony or anything else along with Aristaeus, who married Autonoe, the daughter of Cadmus. At any rate, these colonists too founded no city, the reason being, I think, that neither in numbers nor in strength were they capable of the task.
[10.17.5] After Aristaeus the Iberians crossed to Sardinia, under Norax as leader of the expedition, and they founded the city of Nora. The tradition is that this was the first city in the island, and they say that Norax was a son of Erytheia, the daughter of Geryones, with Hermes for his father. A fourth component part of the population was the army of Iolaus, consisting of Thespians and men from Attica, which put in at Sardinia and founded Olbia; by themselves the Athenians founded Ogryle, either in commemoration of one of their parishes in the home-land, or else because one Ogrylus himself took part in the expedition. Be this as it may, there are still today places in Sardinia called Iolaia, and Iolaus is worshipped by the inhabitants.
[10.17.6] When Troy was taken, among those Trojans who fled were those who escaped with Aeneas. A part of them, carried from their course by winds, reached Sardinia and intermarried with the Greeks already settled there. But the non-Greek element were prevented from coming to blows with the Greeks and Trojans, for the two enemies were evenly matched in all warlike equipment, while the river Thorsus, flowing between their territories, made both equally afraid to cross it.
[10.17.7] However, many years afterwards the Libyans crossed again to the island with a stronger army, and began a war against the Greeks. The Greeks were utterly destroyed, or only a few of them survived. The Trojans made their escape to the high parts of the island, and occupied mountains difficult to climb, being precipitous and protected by stakes. Even at the present day they are called Ilians, but in figure, in the fashion of their arms, and in their mode of living generally, they are like the Libyans.

SARDINIA, HISTORY
[10.17.8] Not far distant from Sardinia is an island, called Cyrnus by the Greeks, but Corsica by the Libyans who inhabit it. A large part of the population, oppressed by civil strife, left it and came to Sardinia; there they took up their abode, confining themselves to the highlands. The Sardinians, however, call them by the name of Corsicans, which they brought with them from home.
[10.17.9] When the Carthaginians were at the height of their sea power, they overcame all in Sardinia except the Ilians and Corsicans, who were kept from slavery by the strength of the mountains. These Carthaginians, like those who preceded them, founded cities in the island, namely, Caralis and Sulci. Some of the Carthaginian mercenaries, either Libyans or Iberians, quarrelled about the booty, mutinied in a passion, and added to the number of the highland settlers. Their name in the Cyrnian language is Balari, which is the Cyrnian word for fugitives.
[10.17.13] Except for one plant the island is free from poisons. This deadly herb is like celery, and they say that those who eat it die laughing. Wherefore Homer,29 and men after him, call unwholesome laughter sardonic. The herb grows mostly around springs, but does not impart any of its poison to the water.
I have introduced into my history of Phocis this account of Sardinia, because it is an island about which the Greeks are very ignorant.

[10.18.6] There is here one of the labours of Heracles, namely, his fight with the hydra. Tisagoras not only dedicated the offering, but also made it. Both the hydra and Heracles are of iron. To make images of iron is a very difficult task, involving great labour. So the work of Tisagoras, whoever he was, is marvellous. Very marvellous too are the heads of a lion and wild boar at Pergamus, also of iron, which were made as offerings to Dionysus.
[10.19.10] When the Gallic horsemen were engaged, the servants remained behind the ranks and proved useful in the following way. Should a horseman or his horse fall, the slave brought him a horse to mount; if the rider was killed, the slave mounted the horse in his master's place; if both rider and horse were killed, there was a mounted man ready. When a rider was wounded, one slave brought back to camp the wounded man, while the other took his vacant place in the ranks.
[10.19.11] I believe that the Gauls in adopting these methods copied the Persian regiment of the Ten Thousand, who were called the Immortals. There was, however, this difference. The Persians used to wait until the battle was over before replacing casualties, while the Gauls kept reinforcing the horsemen to their full number during the height of the action. This organization is called in their native speech trimarcisia, for I would have you know that marca is the Celtic name for a horse.
[10.19.12] This was the size of the army, and such was the intention of Brennus, when he attacked Greece. The spirit of the Greeks was utterly broken, but the extremity of their terror forced them to defend Greece. They realized that the struggle that faced them would not be one for liberty, as it was when they fought the Persian, and that giving water and earth would not bring them safety. They still remembered the fate of Macedonia, Thrace and Paeonia during the former incursion of the Gauls, and reports were coming in of enormities committed at that very time on the Thessalians. So every man, as well as every state, was convinced that they must either conquer or perish.

[10.20.7] So on that very night he despatched some troops to the Spercheius, not to the places where the old bridges had stood, but lower down, where the Greeks would not notice the crossing, and just where the river spread over the plain and made a marsh and lake instead of a narrow, violent stream. Hither Brennus sent some ten thousand Gauls, picking out the swimmers and the tallest men; and the Celts as a race are far taller than any other people.
[10.20.8] So these crossed in the night, swimming over the river where it expands into a lake; each man used his shield, his national buckler, as a raft, and the tallest of them were able to cross the water by wading. The Greeks on the Spercheius, as soon as they learned that a detachment of the barbarians had crossed by the marsh, forthwith retreated to the main army. Brennus ordered the dwellers round the Malian gulf to build bridges across the Spercheius, and they proceeded to accomplish their task with a will, for they were frightened of Brennus, and anxious for the barbarians to go away out of their country instead of staying to devastate it further.
[10.21.2] The cavalry on both sides proved useless, as the ground at the Pass is not only narrow, but also smooth because of the natural rock, while most of it is slippery owing to its being covered with streams. The Gauls were worse armed than the Greeks, having no other defensive armour than their national shields, while they were still more inferior in war experience.
[10.21.3] On they marched against their enemies with the unreasoning fury and passion of brutes. Slashed with axe or sword they kept their desperation while they still breathed; pierced by arrow or javelin, they did not abate of their passion so long as life remained. Some drew out from their wounds the spears, by which they had been hit, and threw them at the Greeks or used them in close fighting.
[10.22.2] All the leaders of the barbarians except Brennus were terrified of the Greeks, and at the same time were despondent of the future, seeing that their present condition showed no signs of improvement. But Brennus reasoned that if he could compel the Aetolians to return home to Aetolia, he would find the war against Greece prove easier hereafter. So he detached from his army forty thousand foot and about eight hundred horse. Over these he set in command Orestorius and Combutis,
[10.22.3] who, making their way back by way of the bridges over the Spercheius and across Thessaly again, invaded Aetolia. The fate of the Callians at the hands of Combutis and Orestorius is the most wicked ever heard of, and is without a parallel in the crimes of men. Every male they put to the sword, and there were butchered old men equally with children at their mothers' breasts. The more plump of these sucking babes the Gauls killed, drinking their blood and eating their flesh.
[10.22.4] Women and adult maidens, if they had any spirit at all in them, anticipated their end when the city was captured. Those who survived suffered under imperious violence every form of outrage at the hands of men equally void of pity or of love. Every woman who chanced to find a Gallic sword committed suicide. The others were soon to die of hunger and want of sleep, the incontinent barbarians outraging them by turns, and sating their lust even on the dying and the dead.
[10.22.5] The Aetolians had been informed by messengers what disasters had befallen them, and at once with all speed removed their forces from Thermopylae and hastened to Aetolia, being exasperated at the sufferings of the Callians, and still more fired with determination to save the cities not yet captured. From all the cities at home were mobilized the men of military age; and even those too old for service, their fighting spirit roused by the crisis, were in the ranks, and their very women gladly served with them, being even more enraged against the Gauls than were the men.
[10.23.12] Those who fled with Brennus had been joined by the army under Acichorius only on the previous night. For the Aetolians had delayed their march, hurling at them a merciless shower of javelins and anything else they could lay hands on, so that only a small part of them escaped to the camp at Heracleia. There was still a hope of saving the life of Brennus, so far as his wounds were concerned; but, they say, partly because he feared his fellow-countrymen, and still more because he was conscience-stricken at the calamities he had brought on Greece, he took his own life by drinking neat wine.
[10.23.13] After this the barbarians proceeded with difficulty as far as the Spercheius, pressed hotly by the Aetolians. But after their arrival at the Spercheius, during the rest of the retreat the Thessalians and Malians kept lying in wait for them, and so took their fill of slaughter that not a Gaul returned home in safety.
[10.23.14] The expedition of the Celts against Greece, and their destruction, took place when Anaxicrates was archon at Athens, in the second year of the hundred and twenty-fifth Olympiad, when Ladas of Aegium was victor in the footrace. In the following year, when Democles was archon at Athens, the Celts crossed back again to Asia.

[10.24.2] So these men wrote what I have said, and you can see a bronze statue of Homer on a slab, and read the oracle that they say Homer received:–
Blessed and unhappy, for to be both wast thou born.
Thou seekest thy father-land; but no father-land hast thou, only a mother-land.
The island of Ios is the father-land of thy mother, which will receive thee
When thou hast died; but be on thy guard against the riddle of the young children.
The inhabitants of Ios point to Homer's tomb in the island, and in another part to that of Clymene, who was, they say, the mother of Homer.

[10.24.3] But the Cyprians, who also claim Homer as their own, say that Themisto, one of their native women, was the mother of Homer, and that Euclus foretold the birth of Homer in the following verses:–
And then in sea-girt Cyprus there will be a mighty singer,
Whom Themisto, lady fair, shall bear in the fields, A man of renown, far from rich Salamis.
Leaving Cyprus, tossed and wetted by the waves,
The first and only poet to sing of the woes of spacious Greece,
For ever shall he be deathless and ageless.
These things I have heard, and I have read the oracles, but express no private opinion about either the age or date of Homer.

[10.24.6] Leaving the temple and turning to the left you will come to an enclosure in which is the grave of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. Every year the Delphians sacrifice to him as to a hero. Ascending from the tomb you come to a stone of no large size. Over it every day they pour olive oil, and at each feast they place on it unworked wool. There is also an opinion about this stone, that it was given to Cronus instead of his child, and that Cronus vomited it up again.
[10.25.9] The Trojan women are represented as already captives and lamenting. Andromache is in the painting, and near stands her boy grasping her breast; this child Lescheos says was put to death by being flung from the tower, not that the Greeks had so decreed, but Neoptolemus, of his own accord, was minded to murder him. In the painting is also Medesicaste, another of Priam's illegitimate daughters, who according to Homer42 left her home and went to the city of Pedaeum to be the wife of Imbrius, the son of Mentor.
[10.25.10] Andromache and Medesicaste are wearing hoods, but the hair of Polyxena is braided after the custom of maidens. Poets sing of her death at the tomb of Achilles, and both at Athens and at Pergamus on the Calcus I have seen the tragedy of Polyxena depicted in paintings.
[10.26.5] In the picture is an altar, to which a small boy clings in terror. On the altar lies a bronze corselet. At the present day corselets of this form are rare, but they used to be worn in days of old. They were made of two bronze pieces, one fitting the chest and the parts about the belly, the other intended to protect the back. They were called gyala. One was put on in front, and the other behind; then they were fastened together by buckles.
[10.26.6] They were thought to afford sufficient safety even without a shield. Wherefore Homer43 speaks of Phorcys the Phrygian as without a shield, because he wore a two-piece corselet. Not only have I seen this armour depicted by Polygnotus, but in the temple of Ephesian Artemis Calliphon of Samos has painted women fitting on the gyala of the corselet of Patroclus.
[10.27.1] XXVII. There are also corpses: the naked man, Pelis by name, lies thrown on his back, and under Pelis lie Eioneus and Admetus, still clad in their corselets. Of these Lescheos says that Eioneus was killed by Neoptolemus, and Admetus by Philoctetes. Above these are others: under the washing-basin is Leocritus, the son of Pulydamas, killed by Odysseus; beyond Eioneus and Admetus is Coroebus, the son of Mygdon. Of Mygdon there is a notable tomb on the borders of the Phrygians of Stectorium, and after him poets are wont to call Phrygians by the name of Mygdones. Coroebus came to marry Cassandra, and was killed, according to the more popular account, by Neoptolemus, but according to the poet Lescheos, by Diomedes.
[10.27.2] Higher up than Coroebus are Priam, Axion and Agenor. Lescheos says that Priam was not killed at the hearth of the Courtyard God, but that he was dragged away from the altar and fell an easy prey to Neoptolemus at the gate of his own palace. As to Hecuba, Stesichorus says in the Sack of Troy that she was brought by Apollo to Lycia. Lescheos says that Axion was a son of Priam, killed by Eurypylus, the son of Euaemon. According to the same poet Agenor was slain by Neoptolemus. So it would appear that Echeclus the son of Agenor was slaughtered by Achilles, and Agenor himself by Neoptolemus.
[10.28.1] XXVIII. The other part of the picture, the one on the left, shows Odysseus, who has descended into what is called Hades to inquire of the soul of Teiresias about his safe return home. The objects depicted are as follow. There is water like a river, clearly intended for Acheron, with reeds growing in it; the forms of the fishes appear so dim that you will take them to be shadows rather than fish. On the river is a boat, with the ferryman at the oars.
[10.28.4] On the bank of Acheron there is a notable group under the boat of Charon, consisting of a man who had been undutiful to his father and is now being throttled by him. For the men of old held their parents in the greatest respect, as we may infer, among other instances, from those in Catana called the Pious, who, when the fire flowed down on Catana from Aetna, held of no account gold or silver, but when they fled took up, one his mother and another his father. As they struggled on, the fire rushed up and caught them in the flames. Not even so would they put down their parents, and it is said that the stream of lava divided itself in two, and the fire passed on, doing no hurt to either young men or their parents. These Catanians even at the present day receive honors from their fellow countrymen.
[10.28.7] Higher up than the figures I have enumerated comes Eurynomus, said by the Delphian guides to be one of the demons in Hades, who eats off all the flesh of the corpses, leaving only their bones. But Homer's Odyssey, the poem called the Minyad, and the Returns, although they tell of Hades, and its horrors, know of no demon called Eurynomus. However, I will describe what he is like and his attitude in the painting. He is of a color between blue and black, like that of meat flies; he is showing his teeth and is seated, and under him is spread a vulture's skin.
[10.29.2] So they will have it that Polygnotus has painted a parable about the wife of Ocnus. I know also that the Ionians, whenever they see a man labouring at nothing profitable, say that such an one is plaiting the cord of Ocnus. Ocnus too is the name given to a bird by the seers who observe birds that are ominous. This Ocnus is the largest and most beautiful of the herons, a rare bird if ever there was one.
[10.29.4] Ariadne was taken away from Theseus by Dionysus, who sailed against him with superior forces, and either fell in with Ariadne by chance or else set an ambush to catch her. This Dionysus was, in my opinion, none other than he who was the first to invade India, and the first to bridge the river Euphrates. Zeugma (Bridge) was the name given to that part of the country where the Euphrates was bridged, and at the present day the cable is still preserved with which he spanned the river; it is plaited with branches of the vine and ivy.
[10.29.5] Both the Greeks and the Egyptians have many legends about Dionysus. Underneath Phaedra is Chloris leaning against the knees of Thyia. He will not be mistaken who says that all during the lives of these women they remained friends. For Chloris came from Orchomenus in Boeotia, and the other was a daughter of Castalius from Parnassus. Other authorities have told their history, how that Thyia had connection with Poseidon, and how Chloris wedded Neleus, son of Poseidon.
[10.30.9] Above him is Marsyas, sitting on a rock, and by his side is Olympus, with the appearance of a boy in the bloom of youth learning to play the flute. The Phrygians in Celaenae hold that the river passing through the city was once this great flute-player, and they also hold that the Song of the Mother, an air for the flute, was composed by Marsyas. They say too that they repelled the army of the Gauls by the aid of Marsyas, who defended them against the barbarians by the water from the river and by the music of his flute.
[10.31.5] In the lower part of the picture, after the Thracian Thamyris, comes Hector, who is sitting with both hands clasped about his left knee, in an attitude of deep grief. After him is Memnon, sitting on a rock, and Sarpedon next to Memnon. Sarpedon has his face buried in both hands, and one of Memnon's hands lies on Sarpedon's shoulder.
[10.31.6] All are bearded; and on the cloak of Memnon are embroidered birds. Their name is Memnonides, and the people of the Hellespont say that on stated days every year they go to the grave of Memnon, and sweep all that part of the tomb that is bare of trees or grass, and sprinkle it with the water of the Aesepus from their wet wings.
[10.31.7] Beside Memnon is depicted a naked Ethiopian boy, because Memnon was king of the Ethiopian nation. He came to Troy, however, not from Ethiopia, but from Susa in Persia and from the river Choaspes, having subdued all the peoples that lived between these and Troy. The Phrygians still point out the road through which he led his army, picking out the shortest routes. The road is divided up by halting-places.48
[48. With the suggested emendations: “is cut through the mountains” or “is cut through the territory of the people of Meros.”]
[10.31.8] Beyond Sarpedon and Memnon is Paris, as yet beardless. He is clapping his hands like a boor, and you will say that it is as though Paris were calling Penthesileia to him by the noise of his hands. Penthesileia too is there, looking at Paris, but by the toss of her head she seems to show her disdain and contempt. In appearance Penthesileia is a maiden, carrying a bow like Scythian bows, and wearing a leopard's skin on her shoulders.
[10.31.12] Under this jar is Tantalus, enduring all the pains that Homer50 speaks of, and in addition the terror of the stone that hangs over him. Polygnotus has plainly followed the account of Archilochus, but I do not know whether Archilochus borrowed from others the story of the stone or whether it was an invention of his that he introduced into his poem.
So great is the number of the figures and so many are their beauties, in this painting of the Thasian artist.

Parnassus, about sixty stades distant from Delphi, there is a bronze image. The ascent to the Corycian cave is easier for an active walker than it is for mules or horses. I mentioned a little earlier in my narrative51 that this cave was named after a nymph called Corycia, and of all the caves I have ever seen this seemed to me the best worth seeing.
[10.32.3] It would be impossible to discover even the mere number of caves whose entrances face the beach or the deep sea, but the most famous ones in Greek or in foreign lands are the following. The Phrygians on the river Pencelas, and those who came to this land originally from the Azanians in Arcadia, show visitors a cave called Steunos, which is round, and handsome in its loftiness. It is sacred to the Mother, and there is an image of her.
[10.32.4] Themisonium above Laodiceia is also inhabited by Phrygians. When the army of the Gauls was laying waste Ionia and the borders of Ionia, the Themisonians say that they were helped by Heracles, Apollo and Hermes, who revealed to their magistrates in dreams a cave, and commanded that in it should be hidden the Themisonians with their wives and children.
[10.32.5] This is the reason why in front of the cave they have set up small images, called Gods of the Cave, of Heracles, Hermes and Apollo. The cave is some thirty stades distant from the city, and in it are springs of water. There is no entrance to it, the sunlight does not reach very far, and the greater part of the roof lies quite close to the floor.
[10.32.6] There is also near Magnesia on the river Lethaeus a place called Aulae (Halls), where there is a cave sacred to Apollo, not very remarkable for its size, but the image of Apollo is very old indeed, and bestows strength equal to any task. The men sacred to the god leap down from sheer precipices and high rocks, and uprooting trees of exceeding height walk with their burdens down the narrowest of paths.
[10.32.7] But the Corycian cave exceeds in size those I have mentioned, and it is possible to make one's way through the greater part of it even without lights. The roof stands at a sufficient height from the floor, and water, rising in part from springs but still more dripping from the roof, has made clearly visible the marks of drops on the floor throughout the cave. The dwellers around Parnassus believe it to be sacred to the Corycian nymphs, and especially to Pan. From the Corycian cave it is difficult even for an active walker to reach the heights of Parnassus. The heights are above the clouds, and the Thyiad women rave there in honor of Dionysus and Apollo.

[10.32.13] About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. For the Tithoreans think it wrong to dwell round about it, and no one may enter the shrine except those whom Isis herself has honored by inviting them in dreams. The same rule is observed in the cities above the Maeander by the gods of the lower world; for to all whom they wish to enter their shrines they send visions seen in dreams.
[10.33.11] They celebrate orgies, well worth seeing, in honor of Dionysus, but there is no entrance to the shrine, nor have they any image that can be seen. The people of Amphicleia say that this god is their prophet and their helper in disease. The diseases of the Amphicleans themselves and of their neighbors are cured by means of dreams. The oracles of the god are given by the priest, who utters them when under the divine inspiration.

[10.35.7] Above all other divinities they worship Artemis, of whom they have a temple. The image of her I cannot describe, for their rule is to open the sanctuary twice, and not more often, every year. They say that whatever cattle they consecrate to Artemis grow up immune to disease and fatter than other cattle.

Notes from Ramsay, Hieropolis

William Mitchell Ramsay, "The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, being an Essay of The Local History of Phrygia from the Earliest Times to the Turkish Conquest," volume 1 "The Lycos Valley and South-Western Phrygia"(Oxford: Clarendon 1895). Extracts are from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/other/courses/rels/735/anatolia/Ramsay3.

The commentary on this inscription is contained in Strabo's account, p. 532, of the social customs which existed in Akilisene in his own time, and which, as he says, formerly existed in Lydia. 'They dedicate (to Anaitis) male and female slaves, and this, in itself, is not strange; but even the highest nobles consecrate their daughters while virgins, and among them the rule is that they live as courtesans before the goddess for a long time before they are given in marriage, while no one thinks it unworthy to dwell with a woman of this class.' The inscription shows that the custom survived in Lydia as late as the second century: the person here concerned is of good rank, as is proved by the Latin name of her family\27/. She comes of ancestors who have served before the god with asceticism (unwashed feet) and prostitution; she has served in the same way in accordance with the express orders of the god; and she records her service in a public dedication\28/. This is not likely to have been an isolated case, for it appears, from the publicity given to it, to have involved no infamy. Strabo seems to imply that at Komaria Pontica this kind of service was confined, as a rule, but not absolutely, to the class of persons called <gk>Hierai</

§ 7. THE BROTHERHOOD. The God at Hierapolis is styled Lairbenos (on which name see Ch. IV) and Archegetes on coins, and Apollo Archegetes on inscriptions. The title Archegetes marks him as
the [[page 97]]originator and teacher of the mysteries and ritual to his worshippers\34/: in Greece Apollo Archegetes was the adviser and guide of the emigrants and colonists who went forth from its shores to find homes and food in more productive lands. The most remarkable point which we find in the inscriptions is the institution of Semeiaphoroi of Apollo Archegetes no. 19, who have been explained by Hogarth p. 80 as a class of professional wonder-workers, like those eastern dervishes in modern times, who cut themselves with knives, and do other wonders under the influence of religious excitement. It is, however, more probable that the Semeiaphoroi are to be compared with the Xenoi Tekmoreioi, who will be described more fully in a later chapter\35/. The latter had a secret sign (TE'Kucop), whereby presumably they recognized members of the Brotherbood, and the Bearers of the Sign may be identified with them. To judge from their name Xenoi, the Guest-friends, they must have made hospitality one of their duties. Like all ancient societies, they united under religious forms, in Hierapolis in the worship of Apollo, near Pisidian Antioch in the worship of the Great Artemis of the Limnai. They made voluntary contributions towards a common treasury, from which works of architecture and sculpture were constructed for the good of their common religion. Considering that religion was fundamentally the same over the plateau of Asia Minor, we should expect to find this institution widely spread over the country; and an interesting passage in the travels of the Arab from Tangier, Ibn Batuta, enables us to trace similar societies in the Moslem cities of the Seljuk empire. These cities were peopled to a large extent by the old races, who had adopted the Mohammedan religion, but maintained many of their old social forms and among others that of the Brotherhood. Ibn Batuta mentions this institution as existing in the Anatolian towns which be visited. He saw the Brothers at Antalia\36/, Burdur, La^dhik, Kunia (Iconium), and implies that they existed generally in the Seljuk towns. His words are 'in all the Turkoman\37/ towns which I visited

§ 8. RELIGION OF BURIAL. Naturally we turn to the graves and monuments of the dead to find there evidence of the deepest-lying fee]ings and religious ideas which come out in the presence of death. Among primitive people, the monuments are almost exclusively sepulchral; and this is to a great extent the case at Hierapolis, where the road that leads to Tripolis and the west is still lined with hundreds of inscribed monuments, some of large size and imposing appearance. The care which was taken of the graves was remarkable. There was a guardian of the graves along the road\38/, who shared sometimes in the money that was left for distribution annually among those who went on the anniversary of death to place a garland of flowers on the tomb (Stephanotikon). But the most remarkable feature here and in every part of Phrygia is the anxiety to prevent the interment of unprivileged persons in the grave. It is not simply desire to prevent the monument being destroyed; that feeling sometimes appears, but the danger was not so pressing, and in many cases the only offence

[[99]]provided against is the intrusion of a corpse. In the inscriptions the offence is made punishable by fines of varying amount, payable to the city, the imperial treasury, the deity of the city, the senate, or more frequently the Gerousia, the chief city of the conventus\39/, some official, &c. (the hope being that the reward would ensure the prosecution of offenders); in other cases, the offender is merely cursed in more or less strong terms, or consigned to the divine judgement or wrath. In Greece we find little trace of this feeling; the few examples of such epitaphs in Greece are probably of foreigners. But in Asia Minor it is so widespread and deep-seated that it must have a religious foundation. Intrusion of an illegal participator must have involved some loss to the rightful dwellers in the grave. This implies that belief in a future existence was part of the Phrygian religion, and also that the actual monument and tomb was connected with the future lot of the deceased. What meaning, then, had the tomb to the native mind?

Under the Roman Empire two kinds of sepulchral monument were commonly used in Phrygia, where the primitive customs were far more thoroughly preserved than in Lydia\40/. One is a slab of marble or other stone cut to imitate a doorway; the door-posts, the two valves, the lintel, and generally a pointed or rounded pediment above, are all indicated; one or two knockers usually appear on the door, and symbols are often carved on the panels or in the pediment. On such a tombstone there is no suitable place for an inscription; but an epitaph is usually engraved on some part of the stone. The door as an accompaniment of the grave is found in Phrygia from the earliest period to which our knowledge extends; in the tomb of Midas and many others the door is part of the elaborately carved front. Now many graves in Phrygia, Lycia, Pisidia, &c., have the form of small temples. Even the sarcophagi are frequently made like miniature temples. The door-tombstone we may take to be an indication of the temple, the part being put for the whole.

The second kind of tombstone has the form of an altar -- a square pillar (very rarely a circular one) with pedestal and capital, usually of very simple type, but sometimes elaborately decorated. In the inscriptions the name 'altar' is commonly applied to the monuments of this form; but in several cases the word 'door,' and in one ease 'the altar and the door,' is engraved on a different side of the altar-

\39/ So at Aigai (Pergamos) and Lagbe (Cibyra), see Ch. VlIl § 11 and p. 272.

\40/ Lydia had become almost completely hellenized, and the Lydian language had entirely disappeared from use in the country before A. D. 19, though it was still spoken in Cibyra (Strabo p. 631).

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stone. These inscriptions show how important an idea in the tomb the door was reckoned. These classes of monuments constitute 90 per cent. of the existing gravestones in Phrygia; and, of the remaining 10 percent, five can be explained as developments of the idea of a temple. The dead man is therefore conceived as living on as a god, and as receiving worship; and the door is intended as the passage for communication between the world of life and the world of death, giving him freedom to issue forth to help his worshippers. On the altar the living placed the offerings due to the dead. Further, many inscriptions, which will be given in due course, show that the dead person was conceived to be identified with the divine nature. The life of man has come from God, and returns to Him. One single monument in Phrygia shows the door of
the grave opened, and we are admitted to contemplate; inside we find no place or room for a dead body, only the statue of the Mother-Goddess accompanied by her lions. So in Lydia before the time of Homer, the Maeonian chiefs, sons of the Gygaean lake (Il. II 865), or of the Naiad Nymph who bore them by the lake (Il. XX 384), are buried in the mounds, which we still see in numbers on its shores. For these heroes death is simply the return to live with the Goddess-Mother
that bore them. Hence a very common form of epitaph represents the making of the grave as a vow or a dedication to the local deity.
Addend. 24.
The tomb, then, is the temple, i.e. the home\41/, of the god, and he who gains admission, even by fraud or violence, to the tomb gets all the advantages which the rightful owner intended for himself.

The deification of the dead, whether generically under the name of Di Manes, (at Nakoleia), &c., or specifically as identified with some particular deity, is one of the most widespretd facts of ancient religion. In the Roman world the conception of the dead as Di Manes gave rise to a standing formula of epitaphs: the formula appears on many thousands of tombstones, and had indeed become such a pure formula that its meaning was no longer present to the minds of the persons that composed the epitaph, and thus it is used occasionally even on Christian tombstones\42/. The identification of the dead with a particular deity is not so common; but examples occur in all ages. We shall find many epitaphs which show that the erection of a gravestone was conceived and expressed as a vow to some

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deity who is named on the stone; and it is highly probable that many so-called votive inscriptions are really sepulchral. In this way the class of votive inscriptions to the god Sozon are explained Ch. VIII § 9, and those to Zeus Bronton in the neighbourhood of Nakoleia\43/ are of the same character. The erection of a gravestone is also conceived as a distinction and prerogative of the dead man and living god; and the formula stating that the erector of the tomb did honour to
the dead person is widely used, especially on the southern side of the great plateau of Asia Minor. Such tombs were frequently erected by a city or corporate body, and the tombstone is then expressed in forms similar to those of an
honorary inscription to a living person. A very clear example occurs in no. 85.

§ 9. THE GOD AS RULER AND HEALER. In studying the antiquities of the various cities and bishoprics of Phrygia, and in a less degree of other districts of Asia Minor, we shall find numberless traces which enable us to fill out in detail this brief sketch of the religion of Hierapolis and of the old social system to which it bears witness. Dionysopolis especially shows a type of religion that agrees in the names and probably in the minutest details with that of Hierapolis; and everything that we shall have to say of the former may, no doubt, be taken as applying to the latter. But Hierapolis was so much under Greek influence that the Phrygian ritual was more strictly esoteric and private there than in some other places. In particular, not a trace survives there of the old system of government on the village-system which struggled all over Asia Minor against the Greek city-system. The Anatolian village-system mas almost a pure theocracy. The god of the central <gk>hieron</>, revealing his will through his priests and prophets, guided with absolute power the action of the population which dwelt in villages scattered over the country round the. The chief priesthoods seem to have been originally hereditary in one family or in a small number of families; but no evidence remains as to the rules of succession. The highest priests and priestesses played the parts of the great gods in the mystic ritual, wore their dress, and bore their names; they, as a body or perhaps the chief priest alone, controlled the prophetic utterances which guided the action of the community. Alongside of this theocratic government of the various districts, there was originally an imperial government of the whole country; but the nature of this central government is still a matter for investigation. Nothing positive can be stated about it at this stage, though its existence seems certain.

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In the following chapter we shall study in more detail the traces of the old system of society which survived in more backward and remote parts of the country even under the Roman Empire. But at this point we may make some general remarks about the theocratic character of the Anatolian system.

Besides the land which was originally, apparently, the property (probably communal property) of the free population, there was also a considerable, or even a very large estate, actually the property of the god and called <gk>X6pa lepa'</>. The rents or crops of this land were enjoyed by the priest of the god\44/. It seems to have been generally let on hire; and analogy would lead us to suppose that the rent was in many cases a proportion of the produce. Besides this Sacred Ground there was a tract of land round the <gk>hieron</> which was inhabited specially by <gk>hieroi</> (Ch. IV § i2 (c)), worshippers, &c., and which seems to be originally the same as the .. At Stratonicea those who inhabited the <gk>peripolion</> were distinguished from the inhabitants of the city. Narrower still than this was the Sacred Precinct, where, as a rule, probably the priest and the priestess alone lived\45/.

It is an interesting but difficult study to trace the change through which the Anatolian system passed in contact with the
freer Greek civilization.

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which was naturally exercised by the priest over the free population without any formal legal authority was converted by the Romans into an express and formal sovereignty, so that the priest was leader of the free population (Strab. pp. 535, 558)
and master, <lt>dominus</>) of the hierodouloi. Originallv the influence of the priest accrued to him partly as interpreter of the will of the god to people who guided their action greatly by that will revealed in dreams or prophecies, partly in virtue of his superior knowledge and education among a simple and primitive population. Such informal influence, exercised <lt>de facto </> but not <lt>de jure</>, was not properly understood by the formal Romans, who wished to make explicit the constitution of these half-independent states and to have a central authority formally responsible to them\49/. The
temple of Zeus Chrysaor near Stratonicea may be taken, perhaps, as a fairer specimen of the old native system: the Carians
assembled there to sacrifice and to delib50erate about the political situation\50/.

When the immense, yet informal, influence of the priest was thus regarded as a formal and express authority, it followed that, after the government passed out of his hands into those of the Roman state or the Emperor, the power and property which had belonged, according to the Roman view, to the priest passed to the new government\51/. It is an analogous fact that in many hellenized cities of the western coast-valleys, a magistrate called Stephanophoros succeeded to the political influence which had been exercised by the priest, while the latter seems to have been restricted to the strictly religious duties of his office, which were of course still great and important, Ch. II § 9. There is also great probability that the Greek kings acted in the same way as we suppose the emperors to have done\52/, making themselves the successors to the priests as owners of the land which belonged to

\51/ It is probable that there would be some difference in the treatment of such property according as it was taken under the
republican or the imperial government. Evidence must be sought for bearing on this point; but, as a general rule, the Romans, when they took a province, found that the existing rulers were not the old priests, but more recent kings or governors.

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the temples, and they in turn were succeeded by the Roman emperors. It is quite probable and natural that a distinct agreement was made in some or all cases with the priest of the temple, and certain privileges and property and rights were guaranteed him. It would be the easiest and most useful policy for the Greek kings to secure in this way the support and goodwill of the priests. All this was done at the expense of the uneducated native population; but we find in almost every case that the priesthood was in alliance with the monarchs and tyrants, and opposed to anything like the Greek-city system, which was likely to emancipate and educate the people

…It is probable that details varied in different places; and we should avoid drawing universal conclusions from single cases.

An interesting side of this religion was its connexion with the healing art. The god was the Physician and the Saviour of his people\54/. He punished their faults and transgressions by inflicting diseases on them; and, when they were penitent, he taught them how to treat and to cure their diseases\55/. Hence we found that a school of medicine grew up round the <gk>hieron</> of Men Karou (Ch. II § 7 c), and almost everywhere we find dedications to and worship of the god
Asklepios. Such dedications to Greek gods occur in bewildering variety. The worshipper appeals to the god on that side of his manifold and all-powerful character which suits his special needs; and, as all educated persons used Greek, each designated the god by the Greek name which seemed to suit his special case, and express the reason that led him to seek for divine aid\56/.

\54/So, e.g., we find a deity, probably Men, represented carrying a staff wreathed with a serpent, not unlike the staff of Asklepios, or accompanied by a serpent. Sabazios is especially closely related to the serpent.

\55/ As the lord of life, the god both gives it and takes it away: hence he is both god of graves (§ 8) and of medicine, nos. 95, 194.

\56/ The view taken by Roscher that these various deities were all distinct conceptions with a different meaning and origin (Men the moon, &c.) and that in later time they were confused and mixed up ('verschmelzung des Men mit Mithras, Attis, Sabazios, Asklepios, und Hekate') is one that I cannot sympathize with (see his paper Berichte Verhandl, Leipzig, 1891 p. 96 f). I grant that different history, tribes, and places, had given a certain degree of individual character to Men and to Sabazios; but I believe that it was their fundamental similarity of character that led them to pass into one another as they do. Roscher may collect examples of Men; but for almost every attribute and type it would be easy to find an exact analogue in the case of Sabazios.

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The following festivals or games are known at Hierapolis:

… Mr. Head mentions games Chrysanthina at Hierapolis; but I find no certain proof of this. Alliance coins of Hierapolis and Sardis show the games Pythia (representing the former) and Chrysanthina (representing the latter); and Sardian coins boast of the Chrysanthina. The name is probably derived, as Mr. Head suggests, from the use of the corn-marigold in the victor's wreath. The flower, in that case, must have been sacred to Cybele; and the games were held in her honour. It would be quite natural that the same custom and the same name should exist at Hierapolis as at Sardis; but the coins in the British Museum that bear the names of both festivals are all alliance coins.

§ 12. MAGISTRATES AND MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS. The Greek political institutions seem not to have taken deep root in Hierapolis. The inscriptions mention the Senate, but only as a receiver of sepulchral fines; they mention the Record-office as containing copies of sepulchral inscriptions; they mention the Gerousia as guardian of graves; and they mention an annual gymnasiarch, and an agoranomos. On the coins, which are a thoroughly political institution, we find Senate, Demos, Gerousia, Archons, Strategoi, Grammateus, and Prytanis\71/; also Euposia and Eubosia, the former an impersonation of the public banquets, and the latter of the fertility of the soil (as in CIG 3906), both being forms of the mother-goddess of the city in her civic aspect\72/.

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to be the civic representative of the supreme power which had once belonged to the chief-priest of Leto and Lairbenos, wearing the garland which marked him as holding the place of the god. Just as the old title often persisted in Greek cities as a municipal office after the ancient kingly power had fallen into disuse, so apparently the Stephanephoros continued as an official of many cities after the old priestly authority had been destroyed. See pp. 56, 103.

§ 13. GEROUSIA\74/. The only municipal institution about which we learn anything from the inscriptions of Hierapolis is the Gerousia. The Gerousiai of the Asian cities under the Empire were bodies of great importance; but their character is rather obscure. It is, on the one band, clear that the Gerousia was broadly distinguished in its nature from the Senate. The Senate was the politically administrative council of the city: the Gerousia was not a council for administering the municipal government. On the other hand the Gerousia was more than a mere club for the older citizens; it had various powers, and performed various duties which gave it considerable influence, and the Senate, the Demos, and the Gerousia often united in the preamble to honorary decrees\75/. It is not certain that its character was the same in all Asian cities; probably it varied a little, though without any serious difference. The Gerousia and the Neoi are so often associated together that there must have been a certain correspondence in character and purpose between them. The Neoi, again, are undoubtedly closely connected with the Epheboi...

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…Especially the Gerousia was trusted in many cases with the charge of tombs and of solemnities at regular intervals performed beside them. Penalties for the violation of the tomb were often made payable to the Gerousia, to give it a motive for attending to the matter; and often a bequest was made to it, the interest of which was payable annually to those members who placed garlands on the grave of the testator. Naturally, the Elders were the body which was thought most likely to interest itself in such matters as the guardianship and preservation of tombs.

…The Gerousia had, as a rule, some building as their centre, a clubhouse and meeting-house combined. In Sardis the palace of Croesus was appropriated to the use of the Elders, and in Thyatira a basilica in the forum of Hadrian\80/; in Nikomedeia the building was termed Gerousia (Plin. ad Traj. 33); in Sidyma and in many other places it was a gymnasium; at Teos it was a stoa; at Nysa it was called Gerontikon.

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… Pagan inscriptions require celebrations at the tomb on the anniversary of the day of death, but here the day is
e. some definite and customary day, which was familiar to those who understood the meaning of.. Burning of objects,
moreover, is not known to have formed part of the pagan sepulchral ritual. The language is here adapted to resemble pagan usage and formulas; but when scrutinized it is seen to be quite different in character.

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APPENDIX III.
CITIES OF PHRYGIA HIERAPOLITANA

1. Hierapolis
2. Metellopolis
3. Dionysopolis Alexander,
4. Annstasiopolis
5. Attouda
6. Mossyna
7. Ankyra
8. Synaos
9. Tiberiopoli
10. Kadoi
11. Aizanoi

Notes on Aratus of Soli, Phaenomena

Aratas wrote a book describing the constellations and weather signs and was a Greek poet who flourished in Macedonia in the early 3rd century BC. His only surviving work is the Phaenomena. His description of the sky, as it relates to forcasting seasons and the weather, in addition to the monitoring of the Lunar Calendar, may related to the Midas City complex. The multitude of altars at Midas City seems to suggest a complex that is oriented to celestial observation, with each altar perhaps pointing at the rising of its god / constellation. The rising of the constellations marks the months of the year, with 12 constellations being traditionaly assigned to the zodiac. For the text source see http://www.theoi.com/Text/AratusPhaenomena.html

A) CONSTELLATIONS NORTH OF THE ECLIPTIC
[25] On either side the Axis ends in two Poles, but thereof the one is not seen, whereas the other faces us in the north high above the ocean. Encompassing it two Bears [Ursa Major and Minor] wheel together – wherefore they are also called the Wains. Now they ever hold their heads each toward the flank of the other, and are borne along always shoulder-wise, turned alternate on their shoulders. If, indeed, the tale be true, from Crete they by the will of mighty Zeus entered up into heaven, for that when in olden days he played as a child in fragrant Dicton, near the hill of Ida, they set him in a cave and nurtured him for the space of a year, what time the Dictaean Curetes were deceiving Cronus. Now the one men call by name Cynosura and the other Helice. It is by Helice that the Achaeans on the sea divine which way to steer their ships, but in the other the Phoenicians put their trust when they cross the sea. But Helice, appearing large at earliest night, is bright and easy to mark; but the other is small, yet better for sailors: for in a smaller orbit wheel all her stars. By her guidance, then, the men of Sidon steer the straightest course.
[45] Between them, as it were the branch of a river, circles in wondrous way the Dragon [Draco], winding infinite around and about; on either side of his coil are borne along the Bears, that shun evermore the blue sea. Now towards the one he stretches the end of his tail, but with the coil he intercepts the Lesser Bear. The tip of his tail ends by the head of Helice, but in the coil Cynosura has her head. For his coiled circles past her very head and comes near her feet, but again, turning back, runs upward. Not one lone star shines on his head, but on his brows are two stars lit, and two in his eyes, and one beneath is set upon the chin-point of the dread monster.
[63] Right there in its orbit wheels a Phantom form, like to a man that strives at a task. That sign no man knows how to read clearly, nor what task he is bent, but men simply call him On His Knees [Engonasin]. Now that Phantom, that toils on his knees, seems to sit on bended knee, and from both his shoulders his hands are upraised and stretch, one this way, one that, a fathom’s length. Over the middle of the head of the crooked Dragon, he has the tip of his right foot.
[71] Here too that Crown [Corona], which glorious Dionysus set to be memorial of the dead Ariadne, wheels beneath the back of the toil-spent Phantom.
[88] Toward the Crown leans the Serpent’s jaw, but beneath his coiling form seek thou for the mighty Claws [Libra]; they are scant of light and nowise brilliant.
[91] Behind Helice, like to one that drives, is borne along Arctophylax whom men also call Boötes, since he seems to lay hand on the wain-like Bear. Very bright is he all; but beneath his belt wheels a star, bright beyond the others, Arcturus himself.
[96] Beneath both feet of Boötes mark the Maiden [Virgo], who in her hands bears the gleaming Ear of Corn [Spica]. Whether she be daughter of Astraeus, who, men say, was of old the father of the stars, or child of other sire, untroubled be her course! But another tale is current among men, how of old she dwelt on earth and met men face to face, nor ever disdained in olden time the tribes of men and women, but mingling with them took her seat, immortal though she was. Her men called Justice; but she assembling the elders, it might be in the market-place or in the wide-wayed streets, uttered her voice, ever urging on them judgements kinder to the people. Not yet in that age had men knowledge of hateful strife, or carping contention, or din of battle, but a simple life they lived. Far from them was the cruel sea and not yet from afar did ships bring their livelihood, but the oxen and the plough and Justice herself, queen of the peoples, giver of things just, abundantly supplied their every need. Even so long as the earth still nurtured the Golden Race, she had her dwelling on earth. But with the Silver Race only a little and no longer with utter readiness did she mingle, for that she yearned for the ways of the men of old. Yet in that Silver Age was she still upon the earth; but from the echoing hills at eventide she came alone, nor spake to any man in gentle words. But when she had filled the great heights with gathering crowds, then would she with threats rebuke their evil ways, and declare that never more at their prayer would she reveal her face to man. “Behold what manner of race the fathers of the Golden Age left behind them! Far meaner than themselves! But ye will breed a viler progeny! Verily wars and cruel bloodshed shall be unto men and grievous woe shall be laid upon them.” Even so she spake and sought the hills and left the people all gazing towards her still. But when they, too, were dead, and when, more ruinous than they which went before, the Race of Bronze was born, who were the first to forge the sword of the highwayman, and the first to eat of the flesh of the ploughing-ox, then verily did Justice loathe that race of men and fly heavenward and took up that abode, where even now in the night time the Maiden is seen of men, established near to far-seen Boötes.
[137] Above both her shoulders at her right wing wheels a star, whereof the name is the Vintager [Vindemiator] – of such size and with such brightness set, as the star that shines beneath the tail of the Great Bear. For dread is the Bear and dread stars are near her. Seeing them thou needest not further conjecture what stars beyond them model all her form. Such stars are borne along, beautiful and great, one in front of her forefeet, and one beneath her hind knees. But all singly one here, one there, are wheeled along without a name.
[147] Beneath the head of Helice are the Twins [Gemini]; beneath her waist is the Crab [Cancer]; beneath her hind feet the Lion [Leo] brightly shines. There is the Sun’s hottest summer path. Then the fields are seen bereft of corn-ears, when first the Sun comes together with the Lion. Then the roaring Etesian winds fall swooping on the vasty deep, and voyaging is no longer seasonable for oars. Then let broad-beamed ships be my choice, and let steersmen hold the helm into the wind.
[156] But if it be thy wish to mark Charioteer [Auriga] and his stars, and if the fame has come to thee of the Goat [Capella] herself and the Kids, who often on the darkening deep have seen men storm-tossed, thou wilt find him in all his might, leaning forward at the left hand of the Twins. Over against him wheels the top of Helice’s head, but on his left shoulder is set the holy Goat, that, as legend tells, gave the breast to Zeus. Her the interpreters of Zeus call the Olenian Goat. Large is she and bright, but there at the wrist of the Charioteer faintly gleam the Kids.
[167] At the feet of Charioteer seek for the crouching horned Bull [Taurus]. Very lifelike are his signs; so clear defined his head: not by other sign would one mark the head of an ox, since in such wise those very stars, wheeling on either side, fashion it. Oft-spoken is their name and not all unheard-of are the Hyades. Broadcast are they on the forehead of the Bull. One star occupies the tip of his left horn and the right foot of the Charioteer, who is close by. Together they are carried in their course, but ever earlier is the Bull than the Charioteer to set beneath the West, albeit they fare together at their rising.
[179] Nor all unnamed shall rest he hapless family of Iasid Cepheus. For their name, too has come unto heaven, for that they were near akin to Zeus. Cepheus himself is set behind the Bear Cynosura, like to one that stretches out both his hands. From her tail-tip to both his feet stretches a measure equal to that from foot to foot. But a little aside from his belt look to find the first coil of the mighty Dragon.
[188] Eastward his hapless wife, Cassiepeia, gleaming when by night the moon is full, wheels with her scanty stars. For few and alternate stars adorn her, which expressly mark her form with lines of light. Like the key of a twofold door barred within, wherewith men striking shoot back the bolts, so singly set shine her stars. But from her shoulders so faint she stretches a fathom’s length. Thou would’st say she was sorrowing over her daughter.
[197] For there, too, wheels that woeful form of Andromeda, enstarred beneath her mother. Thou hast not to wait for a night, I ween, whereon to see her more distinct! So bright is her head and so clearly marked are both the shoulders, the tips of her feet and all her belt. Yet even there she is racked, with arms stretched far apart, and even in Heaven bonds are her portion. Uplifted and outspread there for all time are those hands of hers.
[205] Beneath her head is spread the huge Horse [Pegasus], touching her with his lower belly. One common star gleams on the Horse’s navel and the crown of her head. Three other separate stars, large and bright, at equal distance set on flank and shoulders, trace a square upon the Horse. His head is not so brightly marked, nor his neck, though it be long. But the farthest star on his blazing nostril could fitly rival the former four, that invest him with such splendour. Nor is he four-footed. Parted at the navel, with only half a body, wheels in heaven the sacred Horse. He it was, men say, that brought down from lofty Helicon the bright water of bounteous Hippocrene. For not yet on Helicon’s summit trickled the fountain’s springs, but the Horse smote it and straightway the gushing water was shed abroad at the stamp of his forefoot, and herdsmen were the first to call that stream the fountain of the Horse. From the rock the water wells and never shalt thou see it far from the men of Thespiae; but the Horse himself circles in the heaven of Zeus and is there for thee to behold.
[225] There too are the most swift courses of the Ram [Aries], who, pursued through the longest circuit, runs not a whit slower than the Bear Cynosura – himself weak and starless as on a moonlit night, but yet by the belt of Andromeda thou canst trace him out. For a little below her is he set. Midway he treads the mighty heavens, where wheel the tips of the Scorpion’s Claws and the Belt of Orion.
[233] There is also another sign, fashioned near, below Andromeda, Deltoton [Triangulum], drawn with three sides, whereof two appear equal but the third is less, yet very easy to find, for beyond many is it endowed with stars. Southward a little from Deltoton are the stars of the Ram.
[239] Still father in front of the Ram and still in the vestibule of the South are the Fishes [Pisces]. Ever one is higher than the other, and louder hears the fresh rush of the North wind. From both there stretch, as it were, chains, whereby their tails on either side are joined. The meeting chains are knit by a single beautiful and great star, which is called the Knot of Tails. Let the left shoulder of Andromeda be thy guide to the northern Fish, for it is very near.
[248] Her two feet will guide thee to her bridegroom, Perseus, over whose shoulder they are for ever carried. But he moves in the North a taller form than the others. His right hand is stretched toward the throne of the mother of his bride, and, as if pursuing that which lies before his feet, he greatly strides, dust-stained, in the heaven of Zeus.
[253] Near his left thigh move the Pleiades, all in a cluster, but small is the space that holds them and singly they dimly shine. Seven are they in the songs of men, albeit only six are visible to the eyes. Yet not a star, I ween, has perished from the sky unmarked since the earliest memory of man, but even so the tale is told. Those seven are called by name Halcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and queenly Maia. Small and dim are they all alike, but widely famed they wheel in heaven at morn and eventide, by the will of Zeus, who bade them tell of the beginning of Summer and Winter and of the coming of the ploughing-time.
[268] Yonder, too, is the tiny Tortoise, which, while still beside his cradle, Hermes pierced for stings and bade it be called the Lyre [Lyra]: and he brought it into heaven and set it in front of the unknown Phantom. That Croucher on his Knees comes near the Lyre with his left knee, but the top of the Bird’s head wheels on the other side, and between the Bird’s head and the Phantom’s knee is enstarred the Lyre.
[275] For verily in heaven there is outspread a glittering Bird [Cygnus]. Wreathed in mist is the Bird, but yet the parts above him are rough with stars, not very large, yet not obscure. Like a bird in joyous flight, with fair weather it glides to the west, with the tip of its right wing outstretched towards the right hand of Cepheus, and by its left wing is hung in the heavens the prancing Horse.
[282] Round the prancing Horse range the two Fishes. By the Horse’s head is stretched the right hand of Hydrochoüs [Aquarius]. He is behind Aegoceros [Capricorn], who is set in front and further down, where the mighty Sun turns. In that month use not the open sea lest thou be engulfed in the waves. Neither in the dawn canst thou accomplish a far journey, for fast to evening sped the dawns; nor at night amid they fears will the dawn draw earlier near, though loud and instant be thy cry. Grievous then is the crashing swoop of the South winds when the Sun joins Aegoceros, and then is the frost from heaven hard on the benumbed sailor. Not but that throughout the year’s length the sea ever grows dark beneath the keels, and, like to diving seagulls, we often sit, spying out the deep from our ship with faces turned to the shore; but ever farther back the shores are swept by the waves and only a thin plank staves off Death.
[300] But even in the previous month, storm-tossed sea, when the Sun scorches the Bow and the Wielder of the Bow [Saggitarius], trust no longer in the night but put to shore in the evening. Of that season and that month let the rising of Scorpion at the close of night be a sign to thee. For verily his great Bow does the Bowman draw close by the Scorpion’s sting, and a little in front stands the Scorpion [Scorpio] at his rising, but the Archer rises right after him. Then, too, at the close of night Cynosura’s head runs very high, but Orion just before the dawn wholly sets and Cepheus from hand to waist.
[311] Further up there is another Arrow [Sagitta] shot – alone without a bow. By it is the Bird [Cygnus] outspread nearer the North, but hard at hand another bird tosses in storm, of smaller size but cruel in its rising from the sea when the night is waning, and men call it the Eagle (Storm-bird) [Aquila].
[316] Over Aegoceros floats the Dolphin [Delphinus] with few bright stars and body wreathed in mist, but four brilliants adorn him, set side by side in pairs.

B) CONSTELLATIONS SOUTH OF THE ECLIPTIC
[319] Now these constellations lie between the North and the Sun’s wandering path [the ecliptic], but others many in number rise beneath between the South and the Sun’s course.
[322] Aslant beneath the fore-body of the Bull is set the great Orion. Let none who pass him spread out on high on a cloudless night imagine that, gazing on the heavens, one shall see other stars more fair.
[326] Such a guardian, too, beneath his towering back is seen to stand on his hind legs, the Dog [Canis Major] starenwrought, yet not clearly marked in all his form, but right by his belly he shows dark. The tip of his terrible jaw is marked by a star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Seirius. When he rises with the Sun, no longer do the trees deceive him by the feeble freshness of their leaves. For easily with his keen glance he pierces their ranks, and to some he gives strength but of other s he blights the bark utterly. Of him too at this setting are we aware, but the other stars of the Dog are set round with fainter light to mark his legs.
[338] Beneath both feet of Orion is the Hare [Lepus] pursued continually through all time, while Seirius behind for ever borne as in pursuit. Close behind he rises and as he sets he eyes the setting Hare.
[342] Beside the tail of the Great Dog the ship Argo is hauled stern-foremost. For not hers is the proper course of a ship in motion, but she is borne backwards, reversed even as real ships, when already the sailors turn the stern to the land as they enter the haven, and every one back-paddles the ship, but she rushing sternward lays hold of the shore. Even so is the Argo of Jason borne along stern-foremost. Partly in mist is she borne along, and starless from her prow even to the mast, but the hull is wholly wreathed in light. Loosed is her Rudder and is set beneath the hind feet of the Dog, as he runs in front.
[352] Andromeda, though she cowers a good way off, is pressed by the rush of the mighty Monster of the Sea [Cetus]. For her path lies under the blast of Thracian Boreas, but the South wind drives against her, beneath the Ram and the Pair of Fishes, the hateful Monster, Cetus, set as he is a little above the Starry River.
[359] For alone are those poor remains of Eridanus, River of many tears, also borne beneath the feet of the Gods. He winds beneath Orion’s left foot, but the Shackles, wherewith the Fishes’ tails are held, reach form their tails and join together, and behind the neck of Cetus they mingle their path and fare together. They end in a single star of Cetus, set where meet his spine and head.
[367] Other stars, mean in size and feeble in splendour, wheel between the Rudder of Argo and Cetus, and beneath the grey Hare’s sides they are set without a name. For they are not set like the limbs of a fashioned figure, such as, many in number, fare in order along their constant paths, as the years are fulfilled – stars, which someone of the men that are no more noted and marked how to group in figures and call all by a single name. For it had passed his skill to know each single star or name them one by one. Many are they on every hand and of many the magnitudes and colours are the same, while all go circling round. Wherefore he deemed fit to group the stars in companies, so that in order, set each by other, they might form figures. Hence the constellations got their names, and now no longer does any star rise a marvel from beneath the horizon. Now the other stars are grouped in clear figures and brightly shine, but those beneath the hunted Hare are all clad in mist and nameless in their course.
[385] Below Aegoceros before the blasts of the South Wind swims a Fish, facing Cetus, alone and part from the former Fishes; and him men call the Southern Fish [Piscis Australis].
[389] Other stars, sparsely set beneath Hydrochoüs [Aquarius], hang on high between Cetus in the heavens and the Fish, dim and nameless, and near them on the right hand of bright Hydrochoüs, like some sprinked drops of water lightly shed on this side and on that, other stars wheel bright-eyed though weak. But among them are borne two of more lustrous form, not far apart and yet not near: one beneath both feet of Hydrochoüs, a goodly star and bright, the other beneath the tail of dark-blue Cetus. This cluster as a whole men call The Water. But others low beneath the forefeet of the Archer (Centaur) [Centaurus], a tuned in a circled ring, go wheeling round the sky.
[402] Below the fiery sting of the dread monster, Scorpion, and near the South is hung the Altar [Ara]. Brief is the space thou wilt behold it above the horizon: for it rises over against Arcturus. High runs the path of Arcturus, but sooner passes the Altar to the western sea. But the Altar even beyond aught else hath ancient Night, weeping the woe of men, set to be a mighty sing of storm at sea. For ships in trouble pain her heart, and other signs in other quarters she kindles in sorrow for mariners, storm-buffeted at sea. Wherefore I bid thee pray, when in the open sea, that that constellation wrapt in clouds appear not amidst the others in the heavens, herself unclouded and resplendent above with billowing clouds, as often it is beset when the autumn wind drives them back. For often Night herself reveals this sign, also, for the South Wind in her kindness to toiling sailors. If they heed her favouring signs and quickly lighten their craft and set all in order, on a sudden lo! their task is easier: but if from on high a dread gust of wind smite their ship, all unforeseen, and throw in turmoil all the sails, sometimes they make their voyage all beneath the waves, but at other times, if they win by their prayers Zeus to their aid, and the might of the north wind pass in lightning, after much toil they yet again see each other on the ship. But at this sign fear the South Wind, until thou see’st the North Wind come with lightning. But if the shoulder of Centaur is as far from the western as from the eastern sea, and a faint mist veils it, while behind Night kindles like signs of storm upon the gleaming Atlar, thou must not look for the South, but bethink thee of an East Wind.
[436] The constellation of Centaur [Centaurus] thou wilt find beneath two others. For part in human form lies beneath Scorpio, but the rest, a horse’s trunk and tail, are beneath the Claws. He ever seems to stretch his right hand towards the round Altar, but though his hand is drawn and firmly grasped another sign – the Beast [Fera], for so men of old have named it.
[443] Another constellation trails beyond, which men call the Hydra. Like a living creature it winds afar its coiling form. Its head comes beneath the middle of the Crab, its coil beneath the body of the Lion, and its tail hangs above the Centaur himself. Midway on its coiling form is set the Crater, and at the tip the figure of a Raven [Corvus] that seems to peck at the coil.
[449] There, too, by the Hydra beneath the Twins brightly shines Procyon.
[451] All these constellations thou canst mark as the seasons pass, each returning at its appointed time: for all are unchangingly and firmly fixed in the heavens to be the ornaments of the passing night.

C) THE FIVE PLANETS
[454] But of quite a different class are those five other orbs, that intermingle with them and wheel wandering on every side of the twelve figures of the Zodiac. No longer with the others as they guide couldst thou mark where lies the path of those, since all pursue a shifty course, and long are the periods of their revolution and far distant lies the goal of their conjunction. When I come to them my daring fails, but mine be the power to tell of the orbits of the Fixed Stars and Signs in heaven.

D) CIRCLES OF THE CELESTIAL SPHERE
[462] These orbits lie like rings, four in number, chief in interest and in profit, if thou wouldst mark the measures of the waning and the waxing of the Seasons. On all are set beacon lights, many in number, all every way closely penned together. The circles are immovable, and fitted each to other, but in size two are matched with two.
[469] If ever on a clear night, when Night in the heavens shows to men all her stars in their brightness and no star is borne faintly gleaming at the mid-month moon, but they all sharply pierce the darkness – if in such an hour wonder rises in thy heart to mark on every side the heaven cleft by a broad belt, or if someone at they side point out that circle set with brilliants – that is what men call the Milky Way. A match for it in colour thou wilt find no circle wheel, but in size two of the four belts as large, but the other two are far inferior.
[480] Of the lesser circles one [Tropic of Cancer] is night to Boreas at his coming, and on it are borne both the heads of the Twins and the knees of the stedfast Charioteer, and above him are the left shoulder and shin of Perseus. It crosses Andromeda’s right arm above the elbow. Above it is set her palm, nearer the north, and southward leans her elbow. The hoofs of the Horse, the head and neck of the Bird and Ophiuchus’ bright shoulders wheel along this circle in their course. The Maiden is borne a little to the South and does not touch the Belt, but on it are the Lion and the Crab, Thereon are they both established side by side, but the circle cuts the Lion beneath the breast and belly lengthwise to the loins, and the Crab it cuts clean through by the shell where thou canst see him most clearly cut, as he stands upright with his eyes on either side of the Belt. The circle is divided, as well as may be, into eight parts, whereof five in the daytime wheel on high above the earth and three beneath the horizon. In it is the Turning-point of the Sun in summer [solstice]. This circle is set round the Crab in the North.
[501] But there is another circle [Tropic of Capricorn] to match in the South. It cuts through the middle of Aegoceros, the feet of Hydrochoüs, and the tail of the sea-monster, Cetus, and on it is the Hare. It claims no great share of the Dog, but only the space that he occupies with his feet. In it is Argo and the mighty back of the Centaur, the sting of Scorpio, and the Bow of the bright Archer. This circle the sun passes last as he is southward borne from the bright north, and here is the Turning-point of the sun in winter. Three parts of eight of his course are above and five below the horizon.
[511] Between the Tropics a Belt [the Equater], peer of the grey Milky Way, undergirds the earth with imaginary line bisects the sphere. In it the days are equal to the nights both at the waning of the summer and the waxing of the spring [the Equinoxes]. The sign appointed for it is the Ram and the knees of the Bull – the Ram being borne lengthwise through it, but of the Bull just the visible bend of the knees. In it are the Belt of the well-starred Orion and the coil of the gleaming Hydra: in it, too, the dim-lit Crater and the Crow and the scanty-starred Claws and the knees of Ophiuchus are borne. But it has no share in the Eagle, but near it flies the mighty messenger of Zeus. Facing the Eagle wheel the head and neck of the Horse.
[524] These three Belts [Tropics of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and the Equater] are parallel, and at right angles to the Axis which they surround and which is the centre of them all, but the fourth [the Ecliptic] aslant is fixed athwart the Tropics: they on opposite sides of the Equator support it at either limit, but the Equator bisects it. Not otherwise would a man skilled in the handicraft of Athena join the whirling Belts, wheeling them all around, so many and so great like rings, just as the Belts in the heavens, clasped by the transverse circle, hasten from dawn to night throughout all time. The three Belts rise and set all parallel but ever single and the same is the pint where in due order each rises or sets at East or West. But the fourth circle passes over as much water of ocean as rolls between the rising Aegoceros, and the rising of the Crab: as much as it occupies in rising, so much it occupies in setting. As long as is the ray cast to heaven from the glance of the eye, six times as long a line would subtend this Belt. Each ray, measured of equal length, intercepts the two constellations. This circle is called the Belt of the Zodiac.
[544] In it is the Crag; after the Crab the Lion and beneath him the Maiden; after the Maiden the Claws and the Scorpion himself and the Archer and Aegoceros, and after Aegoceros Hydrochoüs. Beneath him are enstarred the Two Fishes and after them the Ram and next the Bull and the Twins. In them, twelve in all, has the sun his course as he leads on the whole year, and as he fares around this belt, all the fruitful seasons have their growth.
[553] Half this Belt is set below the hollow of the horizon, and half is above the earth. Every night six constellations of this circle’s twelve set and as many rise; as long is each night ever stretched as half the belt rises above the earth from the fall of night.

E) THE ZODIAC RISINGS
[559] Not useless were it for one who seeks the signs of coming day to mark when each sign of the Zodiac rises. For ever with one of them the sun himself rises. One could best search out those constellations by looking on themselves, but if they be dark with clouds or rise hidden behind a hill, get thee fixed signs for their coming. Ocean himself will give thee signs at either horn – the East or the West – in the many constellations that wheel about him, when from below he sends forth each rising sign.
[569] Not very faint are the wheeling constellations that are set about Ocean at East and West, when the Crab [Cancer] rises, some setting in the West and other rising in the East. The Corwn sets and the Southern Fish as far as its back. Half the setting Crown is visible in the sky but half already sinks beneath the verge. Of Engonasin, backward turned, the waist is still visible but his upper parts are borne in night. The rise of the Crab brings down from knee to shoulder the wretches Ophiuchus and Ophis to the neck. No longer great on both sides of the horizon is Arctophylax but only the lesser portion is visible, while the greater part is wrapt in night. For with four signs of the Zodiac Boötes sets and is received in the bosom of ocean; and when he is sated with the light he takes till past midnight in the loosing of this oxen, in the season when he sets with the sinking sun. Those nights are named after his late setting. So these stars are setting, but another, facing them, no dim star, even Orion with glittering belt and shining shoulders and trusting in the might of his sword, and brining all the River, rises from the other horn, the East.
[590] At the coming of the Lion [Leo] those constellations wholly set, which were setting when the Crab rose, and with them sets the Eagle. But the Phantom On His Knees winks all save knee and left foot beneath the stormy ocean. Up rises the Hydra’s head and the bright-eyed Hare and Procyon and the forefeet of the flaming dog.
[596] Not few, either, are the constellations which the Maiden [Virgo] at her rising sends beneath the verge of the earth. Then set the Cyllenian Lyre, the Dolphin and the shapely Arrow. With them the wing-tips of the Bird up to her very tail and the farthest reaches of the River are overshadowed. The head of the Horse sets, sets too his neck. The Hydra rises higher as far as Crater, and before her the Dog brings up his hind feet, dragging behind him the stern of Argo of many stars. And she rises above earth, cleft right at the mast, just when the whole of the Maiden has risen.
[607] Nor can the rising Claws [Libra], though faintly shining, pass unremarked, when at a bound the mighty sign of Boötes rises, jeweled with Arcturus. Aloft is risen all of Argo, but the Hydra, shed as she is afar over the heavens, will lack her tail. The Claws bring only the right leg as far as the thigh of that Phantom that is ever On his Knees, ever crouching by the Lyre – that Phantom, unknown among the figures of the heavens, whom we often see both rise and set on the selfsame night. Of him only the leg is visible at the rising of both the Claws: he himself head-downward on the other side awaits the rising Scorpion and the Drawer of the Bow. For they bring him: Scorpion brings his waist and all aforesaid; the Bow his left hand and head. Even so in three portions is he all brought up piecemeal above the horizon. Half the Crown and the tip of the Centaur’s tail are upraised with the rising Claws. Then is the Horse setting after his vanished head, and dragged below is the tail-tip of the Bird, already set. The head of Andromeda is setting and against her is brought by the misty South the mighty terror, Cetus, but over against him in the North Cepheus with mighty hand upraised warns him back. Cetus, neck downward, sets to his neck, and Cepheus with head and hand and shoulder.
[634] The winding River will straightway sink in fair flowing ocean at the coming of Scorpion [Scorpio], whose rising puts to flight even the mighty Orion. Thy pardon, Artemis, we crave! There is a tale told by the men of old, who said that stout Orion laid hands upon her robe, what time in Chios he was smiting with his strong club all manner of beasts, as a service of the hunt to that King Oenopion. But she forthwith rent in twain the surrounding hills of the island and roused up against him another kind of beast – even the Scorpion, who proving mightier wounded him, mighty though he was, and slew him, for that he had vexed Artemis. Wherefore, too, men say that at the rising of the Scorpion in the East Orion flees at the Western verge. Nor does what was left of Andromeda and of Cetus fail to mark his rise but in full career they too flee. In that hour the belt of Cepheus grazes earth as he dips his upper parts in the sea, but the rest he may not – his feet and knees and loins, for the Bears themselves forbid. The hapless Cassiepeia herself too hastes after the figure of her child. No longer in seemly wise does she shine upon her throne, feet and knees withal, but she headlong plunges like a diver, parted at the knees; for not scatheless was she to rival Doris and Panope. So she is borne towards the West, but other signs in the East the vault of heaven brings from below, the remaining half of the Crown and the tail of the Hydra, and uplifts the body and head of the Centaur and the Beast that the Centaur holds in his right hand. But the fore-feet of the Centaur-Knight await the rising of the Bow.
[665] At the coming of the Bow [Saggitarius] up rises the coil of the Serpent and the body of Ophiuchus. Their heads the rising of the Scorpion himself brings and raises even the hands of Ophiuchus and the foremost coil of the star-bespangled Serpent. Then emerge from below some parts of Engonasin, who ever rises feet-foremost, to wit, his legs, wiast, all his breast, his shoulder with his right hand; but his other hand and his head arise with the rising Bow and the Archer. With them the Lyre of Hermes and Cepheus to his breast drive up from the Eastern Ocean, what time all the rays of the mighty Dog are sinking and all of Orion setting, yea, all the Hare, which the Dog pursues in an unending race. But not yet depart the Kids of the Charioteer and the Arm-borne (Olenian) Goat; by his great hand they shine, and are eminent beyond all his other limbs in raising storms, when they fare with the sun.
[683] His head, hand and waist set at the rising of Aegoceros [Capricorn]; from waist to foot he sets at the rising of the Archer. Nor do Perseus and the end of the stern of jeweled Argo remain on high, but Perseus sets all save his knee and right foot and Argo is gone save her curved stern. She sinks wholly at the rising of Aegoceros, when Procyon sets too, and there rise the Bird and the Eagle and the gems of the winged Arrow and the sacred Altar, that is established in the South.
[693] When Hydrochoüs [Aquarius] is just risen, up wheel the feet and head of the Horse. But opposite the Horse starry Night draws the Centaur, tail-first, beneath the horizon, but cannot yet engulf his head and his broad shoulders, breast and all. But she sinks beneath the verge the coiling neck and all the brow of the gleaming Hydra.
[700] Yet many a coil of the Hydra remains, but Night engulfs her wholly with the Centaur, when the Fishes [Pisces] rise; with the Fishes the Fish which is placed beneath azure Aegoceros rises – not completely but par awaits another sign of the Zodiac. So the weary hands and knees and shoulders of Andromeda are parted – stretched some below and others above the horizon, when the Two Fishes are newly risen from the ocean. Her right side the Fishes bring, but the left the rising Ram. When the latter rises, the Altar is seen setting in the West, while in the East may be seen rising as much as the head and shoulders of Perseus.
[712] As to his belt itself disputed might it be whether it rises as the Ram ceases to rise or at the rising of the Bull [Taurus], with whom he rises wholly. Nor lags behind the Charioteer at the rising of the Bull, for close are set their courses. But not with that sign does he rise completely, but the Twins bring him wholly up. The Kids and the sole of the Charioteer’s left foot and the Goat herself journey with the Bull, what time the neck and tail of Cetus, leviathan of the sky, rise from below. Now Arctophylax is beginning to set with the first of those four constellations of the Zodiac that see him sink wholly, save his never setting left hand that rises by the Great Bear.
[724] Let Ophiuchus setting from both feet even to his knees be a sign of the rising of the Twins in the East. Then no longer is aught of Cetus beneath the verge, but thou shalt see him all. Then, too, can the sailor on the open sea mark the first bend of the River rising from the deep, as he watches for Orion himself to see if he might give him any hint of the measure of the night or of his voyage. For on every hand signs in multitude to the gods reveal to man.

F) THE WEATHER SIGNS
[733] Markest thou not? Whenever the Moon with slender horns shines forth in the West, she tells of a new month beginning: when first her rays are shed abroad just enough to cast a shadow, she is going to the fourth day: with orb half complete she proclaims eight days: with full face the mid-day of the month; and ever with varying phase she tells the date of the dawn that comes round.
[740] Those twelve signs of the Zodiac are sufficient to tell the limits of the night. But they to mark the great year – the season to plough and sow the fallow field and the season to plant the tree – are already revealed of Zeus and set on every side. Yea, and on the sea, too, many a sailor has marked the coming of the stormy tempest, remembering either dread Arcturus or other stars that draw from ocean in the morning twilight or tat he first fall of night. For verily through them all the Sun passes in yearly course, as he drives his mighty furrow, and now to one, now to another he draws near, now as he rises and anon as he sets, and ever another star looks upon another morn.
[752] This thou too knowest, for celebrated by all now are the nineteen cycles [the nineteen year cycle of Meton] of the bright Sun – thou knowest all the stars wheeled aloft by Night from Orion’s belt to the last of Orion and his bold hound, the stars of Poseidon, the stars of Zeus, which, if marked, display fit signs of the seasons. Wherefore to them give careful heed and if ever they trust is in a ship, be it thine to watch what signs in the heavens are labouring under stormy winds or squall at sea. Small is the trouble and thousandfold the reward of his heedfulness who ever takes care. First he himself is safer, and well, too, he profits another by his warning, when a storm is rushing near.
[765] For oft, too, beneath a calm night the sailor shortens sail for fear of the morning sea. Sometimes the storm comes on the third day, sometimes on the fifth, but sometimes the evil comes all unforeseen. For not yet do we mortals know all from Zeus, but much still remains hidden, whereof, what he will, even hereafter will he reveal; for openly he aids the race of men, manifesting himself on every side and showing signs on every hand. Some messages the Moon will convey with orb half-full as she waxes or wanes, others when full: others the Sun by warnings at dawn and again at the edge of night, and other hints from other source can be drawn for day and night.
[778] Scan first the horns on either side the Moon. For with varying hue from time to time the evening paints her and of different shape are her horns at different times as the Moon is waxing – one form on the third day and other on the fourth. From them thou canst learn touching the month that is begun. If she is slender and clear about the third day, she heralds calm: if slender and very ruddy, wind; but if thick and with blunted horns she show but a feeble light on the third and fourth night, her beams are blunted by the South wind or imminent rain. If on the third night neither horn nod forward or lean backward, if vertical they curve their tips on either side, winds from the West will follow that night. But if still with vertical crescent she bring the fourth day too, she gives warning of gathering storm. If her upper horn nod forward, expect thou the North wind, but if it lean backward, the South. But when on the third day a complete halo, blushing red, encircles her, she foretells storm and, the fierier her blush, the fiercer the tempest.
[799] Scan her when full and when half-formed on either side of full, as she waxes from or wanes again to crescent form, and from her hue forecast each month. When quite bright her hue, forecast fair weather; when ruddy, expect the rushing wind; when dark stained with spots, look out for rain. But not for every day is appointed a separate sign, but the signs of the third and fourth day betoken the weather up to the half Moon; those of the half Moon up to full Moon; and in turn the signs of the full Moon up to the waning half Moon; the signs of the half Moon are followed by those of the fourth day from the end of the waning month, and they in their turn by those of the third day of the new month. But if halos encircle all the Moon, set triple or double about her or only single – with the single ring, expect wind or calm; when the ring is broken, wind; when faint and fading, calm; two rings girding the Moon forebode storm; a triple halo would bring a greater storm, and greater still, if black, and more furious still, if the rings are broken. Such warnings for the month thou canst learn from the Moon.
[819] To the Sun’s march at East and West give heed. His hints give even more pertinent warning both at setting, and when he comes from below the verge. May not his orb, whenever thou desirest a fair day, be variegated when first his arrows strike the earth, and may he wear no mark at all but shine stainless altogether. If again thus all pure he be in the hour when the oxen are loosed, and set cloudless in the evening with gentle beam, he will still be at the coming dawn attended with fair weather. But not so, when he rises with seemingly hollow disk, nor when his beams part to strike or North or South, while his centre is bright. But then in truth he journeys either through rain or through wind.
[832] Scan closely, if his beams allow thee, the Sun himself, for scanning him is best, to see if either some blush run over him, as often he shows a blush or here or there, when he fares through trailing clouds, or if haply he is darkened. Let the dark stain be sign to thee of coming rain, and every blush be sign of wind. But if he is draped both black and red at once, he will bring rain and will strain beneath the wind. But if the rays of the rising or setting Sun converge and crowd on one spot, or if he go from night to dawn, or from dawn to night, closely beset with clouds, those days will run in company with rushing rain. Nor be thou heedless of rain, what time before him rises a thin mist, after which the Sun himself ascends with scanty beams. But when a broad belt of mist seems to melt and widen before the rising Sun and anon narrows to less, fair will be his course, and fair too, if in the season of winter his hue wax wan at eventide. But for tomorrow’s rain face the setting Sun and scan the clouds. If a darkening cloud the beams that wheel between the Sun and it part to either side of the cloud, thou shalt still need shelter for the dawn. But if without a cloud he dip in the western ocean, and as he is sinking, or still when he is gone, the clouds stand near him blushing red, neither on the morrow nor in the night needst thou be over-fearful of rain. But fear the coming rain when on a sudden the Sun’s rays seem to thin and pale – just as they often fade when the Moon overshadows them, what time she stands straight between the earth and Sun; nor are the fields unwetted on that day, when before the dawn, as the Sun delays to shine, reddish clouds appear here or there. Be not heedless either of wind or rain to come, when, while the Sun is still below the verge, his precursor beams shine shadowy in the dawn. The more those beams are borne in shadow, the surer the sign they give of rain, but if but faint the dusk that veils his beams, like a soft mist of vapour, that veil of dusk portends wind. Nor are dark halos near the Sun signs of fair weather: when nearer the Sun and dark without relief, they portend greater storms: if there are two rings, they will herald tempests fiercer still.
[880] Marks as the Sun is rising or setting, whether the clouds, called parhelia, blush (on South or North or both), nor make the observation in careless mood. For when on both sides at once those clouds gird the Sun, low down upon the horizon, there is no lingering of the storm that comes from Zeus. But if only one shine purple to the North, form the North will it bring the blast; if in the South, from the South; or down pour the pattering raindrops.
[890] With even greater care mark those signals when in the West, for from the West the warnings are given ever with equal and unfailing certainty.
[892] Watch, too, the Manger. Like a faint mist in the North it plays the guide beneath Cancer. Around it are borne two faintly gleaming stars, not far apart nor very near but distant to the view a cubit’s length, one on the North, while the other looks towards the South. They are called the Asses [in the constellation Cancer], and between them is the Manger. On a sudden, when all the sky is clear, the Manger wholly disappears, while the stars that go on either side seem nearer drawn to one another: not slight then is the storm with which the fields are deluged. If the Manger darken and both stars remain unaltered, they herald rain. But if the Ass to the North of the Manger shine feebly through a faint mist, while the Southern Ass is gleaming bright, expect wind from the South: but if in turn the Southern Ass is cloudy and the Northern bright, watch for the North wind.
[909] A sign of wind be the swelling sea, the far sounding beach, the sea-crags when in calm they echo, and the moaning of the mountain crests.
[913] When, too, the heron in disordered flight comes landward from he sea with many a scream, he is precursor of the gale at sea. Anon, too, the stormy petrels when the flit in calm, move in companies to face the coming winds. Oft before a gale the wild ducks or sea-wheeling gulls beat their wings on the shore, or a cloud is lengthwise resting on the mountain peaks. Marked, too, ere now as sign of wind have been the withered petals, the down of the white thistle, when they abundant float, some in front and others behind, on the surface of the silent sea.
[924] From the quarter whence come the peals of summer thunder and the lightning flash, thence expect the onset of the gale. When through the dark night shooting stars fly thick and their track behind is white, except a wind coming in the same path. If other shooting stars confront them and others from other quarters dart, then be on they guard for winds from every quarter – winds, which beyond all else are hard to judge, and blow beyond man’s power to predict.
[933] But when from East and South the lightnings flash, and again from the West and anon from the North, verily then the sailor on the sea fears to be caught at once by the waves beneath and the rain from heaven. For such lightnings herald rain. Often before the coming rain fleece-like clouds appear or a double rainbow girds the wide sky or some star is rings with darkening halo.
[942] Often the birds of lake or sea insatiably dive and plunge in the water, or around the mere for long the swallows dart, smiting with their breasts the rippling water, or more hapless tribes, a boon to watersnakes, the fathers of the tadpoles croak from the lake itself, or from the lonely tree-frog drones his matin lay, or by jutting bank the chattering crow stalks on the dry land before the coming storm, or it may be dips from head to shoulder in the river, or even dives completely, or hoarsely cawing ruffles it beside the water.
[954] And ere now before rain from the sky, the oxen gazing heavenward have been seen to sniff the air, and the ants from their hollow nests bring up in haste all their eggs, and in swarms the centipedes are seen to climb the walls, and wandering forth crawl those worms that men call dark earth’s intestines (earthworms). Tame fowl with father Chanticleer well preen their plumes and cluck aloud with voices like noise of water dripping upon water.
[962] Ere now, too, the generations of crows and tribes of jackdaws have been a sign of rain to come from Zeus, when they appear in flocks and screech like hawks. Crows, too, imitate with their note the heavy splash of clashing rain, or after twice croaking deeply they raise a loud whirring with frequent flapping of their wings, and ducks of the homestead and jackdaws which haunt the roof seek cover under the eaves and clap their wings, or seaward flies the heron with shrill screams.
[973] Slight not aught of these things when on thy guard for rain, and heed the warning, if beyond their wont the midges sting and are fain for blood, or if on a misty night snuff gather on the nozzle of the lamp, or if in winter’s season the flame of the lamp now rise steadily and anon sparks fly fast from it, like light bubbles, or if on the light itself there dart quivering rays, or if in height of summer the island birds are borne in crowding companies. Be not heedless of the pot or tripod on the fire, if many sparks encircle it, nor heedless when in the ashes of blazing coal there gleam spots like millet seed, but scan those too when seeking signs of rain.
[988] But if a misty cloud be stretched along the base of a high hill, while the upper peaks shine clear, very bright will be the sky. Fair weather, too, shalt thou have, when by the sea-verge is seen a cloud low on the ground, never reaching a height, but penned there like a flat reef of rock.
[994] Seek in clam for signs of storms, and in storm for signs of calm. Scan well the Manger, whereby wheels the Crab, when first it is freed of every covering cloud. For its clearing marks the waning tempest.
[999] Take for sign of storm abating the steady-burning flame of the lamp, the gentle hooting of the owl at night, and the crow if with gentle varying note she caw at eventide, and the rooks, when singly they utter two lonely notes followed by frequent rapid screams, and when in fuller company they bethink them of the roost, full of voice. One would think them glad, seeing how they caw now in shrill screams, now with frequent flight around the foliage of the tree, now on the tree, whereon they roost, and anon they wheel and clap their wings. Cranes, too, before a gentle clam will wing their way steadily onward in one track, all in company, and in fair weather will be borne in no disordered flight.
[1013] But when the clear light from the stars is dimmed, though no thronging clouds veil, nor other darkness hide nor Moon obscure, but the stars on a sudden thus causelessly wax wan, hold that no more for sign of calm but look for storm. Foul weather, too, will come, when of the clouds some are stationary, but others passing by and others following after.
[1021] Sure signs of storm are geese hastening with many a cackle to their food, the nine-generation crow cawing at night, the jackdaw chattering late, the chaffinch piping in the dawn, waterfowl all fleeing inward from the sea, the wren or the robin retreating into hollow clefts, and tribes of jackdaws returning late to roost from dry feeding-grounds. When the furious tempest is imminent, the tawny bees go not far afield to cull wax, but wheel hard by their honey and their stores, nor do cranes on high in long lines wing their steady onward course, but wheel and double in their flight. Look, too, for foul weather, when in windless clam airy gossamers are flying, and when the rays of the lamp are wan and flickering, or when in fair weather fire and torches are hard to kindle. Why recount all the warning hints that come to men? The unsightly clotting of the ash is sign of snow: the ring of spots like millet seed around the blazing wick of the lamp betokens snow; but sign of hail are live coals, when they outward brightly shine, but in their centre appears, as it were, a hazy mist within the glowing fire.
[1044] Nor are holm-oaks, laden with acorns, and the dark mastich untried. With frequent glance on every side the miller ever peers, anxious lest the summer slip from his hand. Holm-oaks with moderate crops of frequent acorns will tell of heavy storm to come. Pray that they may not be exceedingly heavy laden, but only that far from drought the cornfields flourish even as they. Thrice the mastich buds and thrice wax ripe its berries. Each crop in turn brings a sign for the sowing. For men divide the sowing season into three – early, middle, late. The first crop of mastich heralds the first of grain; the second the middle; the latest the last of all. The richest crop that the teaming mastich bears will hint of the wealthiest harvest from the plough: the meanest crop foretells scanty grain, and average mastich heralds average corn. Likewise the stalk of the squill flowers thrice to give hint of corresponding harvest. All the hints the farmer marked in the mastich crop, the same he learns from the white blossom of the squill.
[1064] But when in autumn frequent swarms of wasps crowd on every side, one can foretell the winter-storm to come even before the Pleiads are westering, swift and sudden as thee eddy wherein the wasps are wheeling. Sows and ewes and she-goats, when after mating with the male they mate again, equally with wasps foretell heavy storm. When she-goats and ewes and sows mate late in the season, the poor man rejoices, because their mating reveals to him that is thinly clad the coming of an open winter.
[1075] In seasonable flight of thronging cranes rejoices the seasonable farmer: in untimely flight the untimely ploughman. For ever so the winters follow the cranes: early winters, when their flight is early and in flocks: when they fly late and not in flocks, but over a longer period in small bands, the later farming benefits by the delay of winter.
[1082] If oxen and sheep after the heavy-laden Autumn dig the ground and stretch their heads to face the North wind, verily the Pleiads at their setting will bring a stormy winter. Pray that their digging be not excessive, for then is the winter exceedingly severe and a foe both to tree and tilth. May deep snow clothe the mighty fields, veiling the tender shoot, not yet separate nor tall, so that the anxious husbandman may rejoice in well-being.
[1091] May the stars above shine ever with due brightness; and may no comets, one nor two nor more, appear! for many comets herald a season of drought.
[1094] Nor on the mainland does the husbandman rejoice at the coming of summer to see trooping flocks of birds, when from the islands they alight upon his fields, but exceeding dread is his for the harvest, lest vexed by drought it come with empty ears and chaff. But the goat-herd rejoices even in the birds, when they come in moderate flocks with promise of a season of plenteous milk. For thus do we poor, changeful mortals win in divers ways our livelihood, and all are ready to mark the warnings at their feet and adopt them for the moment.
[1104] Sheep warn the shepherd of coming storm when they rush to pasture in haste beyond their wont, but some behind the flock, now rams, now lambs, sport by the way with butting horns, when some here, some there, they bound aloft, the sillier young with four feet off the ground, the horned elders with two, or when the shepherd moves an unwilling flock, though it be evening when he drives them to their pens, while ever and anon they pluck the grass, through urged by many a stone.
[1113] From oxen too the ploughman and neat-herd learn of the stirring of the storm. When oxen lick with their tongue around the hooves of their fore-feet or in their stalls stretch themselves on their right side, the old ploughman expects the sowing to be delayed. When with ceaseless lowing the kine collect as they wend at eventide to their stalls, the heifers reluctant to leave the meadow pastureland give warning that anon they will not feed in stormless weather. Not fair weather do the goats betide when greedy for prickly holm-oak, and the sows rage furiously over their bedding.
[1124] When a solitary wolf howls loud, or when, as if he sought for shelter, recking little of farmer men, he descends to the cultivated lands near to men to seek a lair there, expect a storm when the third dawn comes round. So, too, by the previous signs thou canst forecast the winds or storm or rain to come on the self-same day or on the morrow or it may be on the third morn.
[1132] Mice, too, as sign of storm, whenever with louder squeaking than their wont they gamboled and seemed to dance in fair weather, were not unmarked by the weather-seers of old. Nor were dogs. The dog with both his paws digs when he suspects the coming of a storm, and then too those mice turn prophets. And landward comes the crab, when the storm is about to burse.
[1140] Mice in the daytime toss straw and are fain to build a nest when Zeus shows signs of rain.
[1142] Make light of none of these warnings. Good rule it is to look for sign confirming sign. When two point the same way, forecast with hope; when three, with confidence. Thou canst always add the signs of the passing season, comparing whether at rising or at setting of a start the day dawn such as the calendar would herald. It would profit much to mark the last four days of the old and first four of the new month. They hold the terms of the meeting months, when the sky on eight nights is deceptive beyond its wont for lack of the bright-eyed moon.
[1153] Study all the signs together throughout the year and never shall thy forecast of the weather be a random guess.
finis

Notes on Pliny, Natural History
(from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny2.html#chap52)

Chap. LIIII.
Generall rules of Lightning.
THAT the Lightning is seene before the thunderclap is heard, although they come indeed joyntly both togither, it is certainly knowne. And no marveile, for the eye is quicker to see light, than the eare to heare a sound. And yet Nature doth so order the number and measure, that the stroke and the sound should accord together. But when there is a noise, it is a signe of the lightning proceeding of some naturall cause, and not sent by some God: and yet evermore this is a breath or wind that commeth before the thunderbolt: and hereupon it is, that every thing is shaken and blasted ere it be smitten: neither is any man strucken, who either saw the lightning before, or heard the thunderclap. Those lightnings that are on the left hand, be supposed to be luckie and prosperous, for that the East is the left side of the world: but the comming therof is not so much regarded as the returne; whether the fire leape back after the stroke given; or whether after the deed done and fire spent, the spirit and blast abovesaid, retire backe againe. In that respect the Tuscanes have devided the Heaven into 16 parts. The first, is from the North to the Sunnes rising in the Equinoctiall line: the second, to the Meridian line, or the South: the third, to the Sunne-setting in the Equinoctiall: and the fourth, taketh up all the rest from the said West to the North starre. These quarters againe they have parted into 4 regions apeece: of which 8 from the Sun-rising, they called the Left; and as many againe from the contrarie part, the Right. Which considered, most dreadfull and terrible are those lightnings, which from the Sunne-setting reach into the North: and therefore it skilleth very much, from whence lightnings come, and whither they goe: the best thing observed in them is, when they returne into the Easterly parts. And therefore, when they come from that first and principall part of the skie, and have recourse againe into the same, it is holden for passing good hap: and such was the signe and token of victories given (by report) to Sylla the Dictatour. In all other parts of the element, they be lesse fortunate or fearfull. They that have written of these matters, have delivered in writing, that there be lightnings, which to utter abroad is held unlawfull; as also to give eare unto them, if they be disclosed, unlesse they be declared either to parents, or to a friend and guest. How great the vanitie is of this observation, was at Rome, upon the blasting of Iunoes temple, found by Scaurus the Consull, who soone after was President of the Senat. It lightneth without thunder, more in the night than day time. Of all creatures that have life and breath, man onely it doth not alwaies kill; the rest, it dispatcheth presently. This priviledge and honour, wee see Nature hath given to him; whereas otherwise so many great beasts surpasse him in strength. All other creatures smitten with lightning, fall downe upon the contrarie side; man onely (unlesse he turne upon the parts stricken) dyeth not. Those that are smitten from above upon the head, stie downe and sinke directly. Hee that is strucken watching, is found dead with his eyes winking and close shut: but whosoever is smitten sleeping, is found open eyed. A man thus comming by his death, may not by law be burned: Religion hath taught, that hee ought to be enterred and buried in the earth. No living creature is set a fire by lightning, but it is breathlesse first. The wounds of them that be smitten with thunderbolts, are colder than all the bodie besides.

Chap. XXXV.
Of Chastitie
SULPITIA, daugther of Paterculus and wife to Fulvius Flaccus, by all the voices in generall of Romane dames, carried away the prize for continencie, and was elected out of the hundred principall matrons of Rome to dedicate and consecrate the image of Venus, according to an ordinance out of Sibyls bookes. Claudia likewise, was by a religious and devout experiment prooved to be such another, at what time as shee brought the mother of the gods, Cybele, to Rome.

Chap. LVI.
The first inventers of diverse things.
BEFORE we depart from this discourse of mens nature, me thinkes it were meet and convenient to shew their sundrie inventions, and what each man hath devised in this world. In the first place, prince Bacchus brought up buying and selling: he it was also that devised the diademe that roiall ensigne and ornament, and the manner of triumph. Dame Ceres was the first that shewed the way of sowing corne, whereas beforetime men lived of mast. Shee taught also, how to grind corne, to knead dough, and make bread thereof, in the land of Attica, Italie, and Sicilie: for which benefite to mankind, reputed shee was a goddesse. Shee it was that began to make lawes, howsoever others have thought, that Rhadamanthus was the first law-giver. As for letters, I am of opinion, that they were in Assyria from the beginning, time out of mind: but some thinke, and namely Gellius, that they were devised by Mercurie in Ægypt, but others say they came first from Syria. True it is, that Cadmus brought with him into Greece from Phœnice to the number of sixteene, unto which, Palamedes in the time of the Trojane warre added foure more in these characters..

Anticlides writeth, That one in Ægypt named Menon, was the inventor of letters, fifteene years before the time of Phoroneus, the most auncient king of Greece: and he goeth about to prove the same by auncient records and monuments out of histories. Contrariwise, Epigenes, an authour as renowmed, and of as good credite as any other, sheweth, that among the Babylonians there were found Ephemerides containing the observations of the stars, for 720 yeeres, written in brickes & tiles: and they that speake of the least, to wit, Berosus and Critodemus, report the like for 480 yeeres. Whereby it appeareth evidently, that letters were alwaies in use, time out of mind. The first that brought the Alphabet into Latium or Italie, were the Pelasgians. Euryalus and Hyperbius, two brethren at Athens, caused the first bricke and tile kils, yea, and the houses therof to be made: wheras before their time men dwelt in holes and caves within the ground. Gellius is of opinion, that Doxius, the sonne of Cælus, devised the first houses that were made of earth and cley: taking his patterne from swallowes and Martines neasts...Weaving was the invention of the Ægyptians: and dying wooll, of the Lydians in Sardis. Closter the sonne of Arachne taught the first making of the spindle for woollen yearne: and Arachne her selfe was the first spinner of flax thred, the weaver of linnen, and of nets. Niceas the Megarean devised the fullers craft: Boethius shewed the art of sowing, as well for tailors, as Corviners and shoemakers. The Ægyptians would have the skill of physicke to have beene first among them: but others affirme, That Arabus, the son of Babylon & Apollo, was the author thereof..The first Herbalist and Apothecarie, renowmed for the knowledge of simples, & composition of medicines, was Chiron, son of Saturne and Phyllira. Aristotle thinketh, that Lydus the Scythian taught the feat of casting and melting brasse, with the tempering also of the same: howbeit, Theophrastus saith it was Delas the Phyrgian. As for the forges and furnaces of brasse, some think the Chalypes devised, others attribute that to the Cyclopes. The discoverie of the yron and steele mines, as also the working in them...The Phrygians invented first the waggon and charriot with foure wheeles... Midias of Messene made the first cuirace. And the Lacedæmonians, the mourian, the sword, and the speare. The Carians devised the grieves, the crests, and pennaches upon helmets. Scythes the sonne of Iupiter, devised bow and arrowes: although some say that Perses, the son of Perseus, invented arrowes. The Ætolians invented the launce and the pike: the dart with a loupe, Ætolus the sonne of Mars, devised. As for the light javelines, and the Partuisanes, Tyrrhenus brought them first into use: and Penthesilea the Amazon-queene, the gleive, bill, battell-axe, and halbard. Piseus found out the borespeare and the chasing staffe. Among engins of artillery, the Cretes invented the Scorpion or crosse-bow: the Syrians, the Catapult: the Phenicians the balist or brake, and the sling. Piseus the Tyrrhenian brought up the use of the brasen trumpet: and Artenon Clazomenius of the pavois, mantilets, targuet-roofes, for the assault of cities. The engine to batter walls (called sometime the horse, and now is named the ram) was the devise of Epeus at Troy. Bellerophon shewed first how to ride on horsebacke. Pelethronius invented saddle, bridle, and other furniture for the horse. The Thessalians, called Centaures, inhabiting neere to the montaine Pelius, were the first that fought on horsebacke. The Phrygians devised first to drive and draw a chariot with two horses: Erichthonius, with foure. Palamedes invented (during the Trojane warre) the manner of setting an armie in battaile array: also the giving of signall, the privie watch-word, the corps de guard, the watch and ward. In the time of the same warre, Sinon devised the sentinels and watch-towers, as also the espiall. Lycanor was the first maker of truce. Theseus, of leagues and alliances. Car, of whom Caria tooke the name, observed first the flight and crie of birds, and thereby gave præsages and fore-tokens. Orpheus went farther in this skill, and tooke markes from other beasts. Delphus pried into beasts inwards, and thereby foretold things to come. Amphiaraus was the first that had knowledge in Pyromancie, and gathered signs by speculation of fire: like as Tyresias the Thebane, by the feeding and gesture of birds. Amphictyon gave the interpretation of strange and prodigious sights, as also of dreames. Atlas the sonne of Libya (or as some say, the Ægyptians, and as others the Assyrians) invented Astrologie: and in that science Anaximander devised the Sphere. As for the knowledge & distinction of the winds, Æolus the sonne of Hellen, he professed it first. Amphion brought musicke first into the world. The flute and the single pipe or recorder, were the inventions of Pan, the son of Mercurie. The crooked cornet, Midas in Phrygia devised. And in the same countrey Marsyas invented the double fluit. But Amphion taught first to sing and play to the Lydian measures: Thamyras the Thracian to the Dorian: and Marsyas of Phrygia, to the Phrygian. Amphion likewise (or, as some say, Orpheus, and after others Linus) plaied first upon the Citterne or the Lute. Terpander put seven strings more unto it: Simonides added thereto an eight: and Timotheus the ninth. Thamyras was the first that plaied upon the stringed instrument, Lute, Citterne, or Harpe, without song: & Amphion sung withall, or according to some, Linus. Terpander was the first that set songs for the foresaid stringed instrument. And Dardanus the Trœzenian began first vocall musicke to the pipe. The Curets taught to daunce in armour; and Pyrhhus the Morisk, in order of battell: and both these were taken up first in Crete.... Danaus was the first that sailed with a ship, and so hee passed the seas from Ægypt to Greece: for before that time they used but troughs or flat planks, devised by king Erythra to crosse from one Iland to another in the red sea. But we meet with some writers who affirme, that the Trojans and Mysians were the first sailers, and devised navigation before them in Hellespont, when they set out a voyage against the Thracians. And even at this day in the British ocean, there be made certaine wicker boats of twigs covered with leather and stitched round about: in Nilus, of paper, cane-reed, and rushes. Philostephanus witnesseth, that Iason first used the long ship or galley: but Egesias saith, that it was Paralus: Ctesias attributeth it to Samyras: Saphanus, to Semyramis: and Archimachus, to Ægeon. Damastes testifieth, that the Erythræans made the Bireme or galley with two bankes of oares...The Phœnicians were the first that in sailing, observed the course of the stars...Then came Piseus the Tyrrhene, and armed the stemme and beake-head of the ship with sharpe tines and pikes of brasse: Eupalamus devised the anchor: Anacharsis made it first with two teeth or floukes: the grapling hookes and the yron hands were the devise of Pericles the Athenien: and finally, Typhis invented the helpe of the helme, for the pylot to steere and rule the ship.

Chap. LVIII.
Of Antique letters.
THE old characters of Greeke letters, were the same in manner that the Latine be in these daies: and this appeareth sufficiently by an antique table of brasse which came from the temple at Delphos, the which at this day is in the great librarie of the Palatium dedicated to Minerva, by the liberalitie of the Emperours, with this or such like inscription upon it.

CHAP. XLVIII.
Divers kinds of wooll and clothes.
...As touching the manner how to die other wools, wee will speake in convenient place, namely, when we shall treat of the purples and sea shell fishes, and of certain hearbes good for that purpose. M. Varro writeth, That within the temple of Sangus, there continued unto the time that he wrote his booke, the wooll that ladie Tanaquil, otherwise named Caia Cæcilia, spun: together with her distaffe and spindle: as also, within the chappell of Fortune, the very roiall robe or mantle of Estate, made with her owne hands after the manner of water-chamlot in wave worke, which Servius Tullus used to weare.
...The said Tanaquil was the first that made the coat or cassocke woven right out all through, such as new beginners (namely, young souldiours, barristers, and fresh brides) put on under their white plaine gowns, without any guard of puple...The long robes embrodered before, called Prætextæ, were devised first by the Tuscanes. The Trabeæ were roiall robes, and I find that kings and princes onely ware them. In Homers time also they used garment embrodered with imagerie and floure-worke: & from thence came the triumphant robbes. As for embroderie it selfe and needle worke, it was the Phrygians invention: and hereupon embroderers in Latine bee called Phrygiones. And in the same Asia, king Attalus was the first that devised cloth of gold: and thence come such clothes to be called Attalica.

Notes on Strabo, Geography

Book II, Chapter 5...And to the south of the Hyrcanian Sea, in part, and of the whole of the p497isthmus between this sea and the Pontus lie the greater part of Armenia, Colchis, the whole of Cappadocia up to the Euxine and to the Tibaranian tribes, and also the so-called Cis-Halys country, which embraces, first next to the Pontus and to the Propontis, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Mysia, the so-called "Phrygia on the Hellespont" (of which the Troad is a part); and, secondly, next to the Aegean and to the sea that forms its continuation, Aeolis, Ionia, Caria, Lycia; and, thirdly, in the interior, Phrygia 130(of which both the so-called "Galatia of the Gallo-Grecians" and "Phrygia Epictetus"196 form a part), Lycaonia, and Lydia.

Book III, Chapter 4 - (Note: These chapters comparing the Iberians to the Celts is relevant to the Phrygians whom Strabo later says are the same as the Thracians and Mylesians.) And besides the true reports of this sort, many other things have not only been seen but also narrated with fictitious additions about all the Iberian tribes in common, but especially the northerners — I mean not only the stories relating to their courage but also those relating to their ferocity and bestial insensibility.113 For instance, at the time of the Cantabrian War114 mothers killed their children before being taken captive; and even a small boy, whose parents and brothers were in fetters as captives of war, gained possession of a sword and, at the command of his father, killed them all; and a woman killed all her fellow captives; and a certain Cantabrian, upon being summoned into the presence of drunken men,115 threw himself upon a pyre. But these traits too are shared in common by them with the Celtic as also with the Thracian and Scythian tribes; and p113in common also the traits relating to courage — I mean the courage of women as well as of men...Poseidonius says that in Liguria his host, Charmoleon, a man of Massilia, narrated to him how he had hired men and women together for ditch-digging; and how one of the women, upon being seized with the pangs of childbirth, went aside from her work to a place near by, and, after having given birth to her child, came back to her work at once in order not to lose her pay; and how he himself saw that she was doing her work painfully, but was not aware of the cause till late in the day, when he learned it and sent her away with her wages; and she carried the infant out to a little spring, bathed it, swaddled it with what she had, and brought it safely home.
18 Nor yet is the following custom peculiar to the Iberians alone: they ride double on horseback, though in the time of battle one of the two fights on foot; nor the especially great number of the mice,117 from which pestilential diseases have often ensued. This was so much the case for the Romans in Cantabria that, although a proclamation was made that mice-catchers would gain bounties graded in proportion to the number caught, the Romans could barely come through with their lives; and, besides the plague, there was a scarcity, not only of other stuffs, but of grain too; and only with difficulty could they p115get supplies out of Aquitania on account of the rough roads. As for the insensibility118 of the Cantabrians, this instance is also told, namely, that when some captive Cantabrians had been nailed on their crosses they proceeded to sing their paean of victory. Now such traits as these would indicate a certain savageness; and yet there are other things which, although not marks of civilisation perhaps, are not brutish; for instance, it is the custom among the Cantabrians for the husbands to give dowries to their wives, for the daughters to be left as heirs, and the brothers to be married off by their sisters. The custom involves, in fact, a sort of woman-rule — but this is not at all a mark of civilisation. It is also an Iberian custom habitually to keep at hand a poison, which is made by them out of an herb that is nearly like parsley and painless,119 so as to have it in readiness for any untoward eventuality; and it is an Iberian custom, too, to devote their lives to whomever they attach themselves, even to the point of dying for them.120

Book IV Chapter 1 - Next, in order,1 comes Transalpine Celtica.2 I have already3 indicated roughly both the shape and the size of this country; but now I must speak of it in detail. Some, as we know, have divided it into three parts, calling its inhabitants Aquitani, Belgae, and Celtae.4 The Aquitani, they said, are wholly different, not only in respect to their language but also in respect to their physique — more like the Iberians than the Galatae; while the rest of the inhabitants are Galatic in appearance, although not all speak the same language, but some make slight variations in their languages. Furthermore, their governments and their modes of life are slightly different.
13 The people who are called Tectosages closely approach the Pyrenees, though they also reach over small parts of the northern side of the Cemmenus; p205and the land they occupy is rich in gold. It appears that at one time they were so powerful and had so large a stock of strong men that, when a sedition broke out in their midst, they drove a considerable number of their own people out of the homeland; again, that other persons from other tribes made common lot with these exiles; and that among these are also those people who have taken possession of that part of Phrygia which has a common boundary with Cappadocia and the Paphlagonians.59 Now as proof of this we have the people who are still, even at the present time, called Tectosages; for, since there are three tribes, one of them — the one that lives about the city of Ancyra — is called "the tribe of the Tectosages," while the remaining two are the Trocmi and the Tolistobogii. As for these latter peoples, although the fact of their racial kinship with the Tectosages indicates that they emigrated from Celtica, I am unable to tell from what districts they set forth; for I have not learned of any Trocmi or Tolistobogii who now live beyond the Alps, or within them, or this side of them. But it is reasonable to suppose that nothing has been left of them in Celtica on account of their thoroughgoing migrations — just as is the case with several other peoples. For example, some say that the second Brennus60 who made an invasion against Delphi was a Prausan, but I am unable to say where on earth the Prausans formerly lived, either. And it is further said that the Tectosages shared in the expedition to Delphi; and even the treasures that were found among them in the city of Tolosa by p207Caepio, a general of the Romans, were, it is said, a part of the valuables that were taken from Delphi, although the people, in trying to consecrate them and propitiate the god, added thereto out of their personal properties, and it was on account of having laid hands on them that Caepio ended his life in misfortunes — for he was cast out by his native land as a temple-robber, and he left behind as his heirs female children only, who, as it turned out, became prostitutes, as Timagenes has said, and therefore perished in disgrace. However, the account of Poseidonius is more plausible: for he says that the treasure that was found in Tolosa amounted to about fifteen thousand talents (part of it in sacred lakes), unwrought, that is, merely gold and silver bullion; whereas the temple at Delphi was in those times already empty of such treasure, because it had been robbed at the time of the sacred war by the Phocians; but even if something was left, it was divided by many among themselves; neither is it reasonable to suppose that they reached their homeland in safety, since they fared wretchedly after their retreat from Delphi and, because of their dissensions, were scattered, some in one direction, others in another. But, as has been said both by Poseidonius and several others, since the country was rich in gold, and also belonged to people who were god-fearing and not extravagant in their ways of living, it came to have treasures in many places in Celtica; but it was the lakes, most of all, that afforded the treasures their inviolability, into which the people let down heavy masses of silver or even of gold.
Book IV Chapter 2 - 1 Next, I must discuss the Aquitani, and the tribes which have been included within their boundaries,68 namely, the fourteen Galatic tribes which inhabit the country between the Garumna and the Liger, some of which reach even to the river-land of the Rhone and to the plains of Narbonitis. For, speaking in a general way, the Aquitani differ from the Galatic race in the build of their bodies as well as in their speech; that is, they are more like the Iberians.69

Book IV Chapter 4 - 1 After the aforesaid tribes, the rest are tribes of those Belgae who live on the ocean-coast. Of the Belgae, there are, first, the Veneti who fought the naval battle with Caesar; for they were already prepared to hinder his voyage to Britain, since they were using the emporium there. But he easily defeated them in the naval battle, making no use of ramming (for the beams99 were thick), but when the Veneti bore down upon him with the wind, the Romans hauled down their sails by means of pole-hooks;100 for, on account of the violence of the winds, the sails were made of leather, and they were hoisted by chains instead of ropes. Because of the ebb-tides, they make their ships with broad bottoms, high sterns, and high prows; they make them of oak (of which they have a plentiful supply), and this is why they do not bring the joints of the planks together but leave gaps; they stuff the gaps full of sea-weed, however, so that the wood may not, for lack of moisture, become dry when the ships are hauled up, because the sea-weed is naturally rather moist, whereas the oak is dry and without fat. It is these Veneti, I think, who settled the colony that is on the Adriatic (for about all the Celti that are in Italy migrated from the transalpine land, just as did the Boii and Senones), although, on account of the likeness of name, people call them Paphlagonians.101 I p237do not speak positively, however, for with reference to such matters probability suffices.

...For these peoples are not only similar in respect to their nature and their governments, but they are also kinsmen to one another; and, further, they live in country that has a common boundary, since it is divided by the River Rhenus , and the most of its regions are similar (though Germany is more to the north), if the southern regions be judged with reference to the southern and also the northern with reference to the northern. But it is also on account of this trait103 that their migrations easily take place, for they move in droves, army and all, or rather they make off, households and all, whenever they are cast out by others stronger than themselves. Again, the Romans conquered these people much more easily than they did the Iberians; in fact, the Romans began earlier, and stopped later, carrying on war with the Iberians, but in the meantime defeated all these — I mean all the peoples who live between the Rhenus and the Pyrenees Mountains. For, since the former were wont to fall upon their opponents all at once and in great numbers, they were defeated all at once, but the latter would husband their resources and divide their struggles, carrying on war in the manner of brigands, different men at different times and in separate divisions.104 Now although they are all105 fighters by nature, they are better as cavalry than as infantry; and the best cavalry-force the Romans have comes from these people. However, it is always those who live more to the north and along the ocean-coast that are the more warlike.
...The Gallic people wear the "sagus,"112 let their hair grow long,113 and wear tight breeches;114 instead of tunics115 they wear slit116 tunics that have sleeves and reach as far as their private parts and the buttocks. The wool of their sheep, from which they weave the coarse "sagi" (which they117 call "laenae"), is not only rough, but also flocky at the surface; the Romans, however, even in the most northerly parts118 raise skin-clothed119 flocks with wool that is sufficiently fine. The Gallic armour is commensurate with the p243large size of their bodies: a long sabre, which hangs along the right side, and a long oblong shield, and spears in proportion, and a "madaris,"120 a special kind of javelin. But some of them also use bows and slings. There is also a certain wooden instrument resembling the "grosphus"121 (it is hurled by hand, not by thong, and ranges even farther than an arrow), which they use particularly for the purposes of bird-hunting. Most of them, even to the present time, sleep on the ground, and eat their meals seated on beds of straw. Food they have in very great quantities, along with milk and flesh of all sorts, but particularly the flesh of hogs, both fresh and salted...Their hogs run wild..As for their houses, which are large and dome-shaped, they make them of planks and wicker, throwing up over them quantities of thatch. And their flocks of sheep and herds of swine are so very large that they supply an abundance of the "sagi" and the salt-meat, not only to Rome, but to most parts of Italy as well. The greater number of their governments used to be aristocratic122 — although in the olden time only one leader was chosen, annually; and so, likewise, for war, only one man was declared general by the common people. But now they give heed, for the most part, to the commands of the Romans. There is a procedure that takes place in their assemblies which is peculiar to them: if a man disturbs the speaker and heckles him, the sergeant-at-arms p245approaches him with drawn sword, and with a threat commands him to be silent; if he does not stop, the sergeant-at-arms does the same thing a second time, and also a third time, but at last cuts off enough of the man's "sagus" to make it useless for the future. But as for their custom relating to the men and the women (I mean the fact that their tasks have been exchanged, in a manner opposite to what obtains among us), it is one which they share in common with many other barbarian peoples.
4 Among all the Gallic peoples, generally speaking, there are three sets of men who are held in exceptional honour; the Bards, the Vates and the Druids.124 The Bards are singers and poets; the Vates, diviners and natural philosophers; while the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy, study also moral philosophy. The Druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are entrusted with the decision, not only of the private disputes, but of the public disputes as well; so that, in former times, they even arbitrated cases of war and made the opponents stop when they were about to line up for battle, and the murder cases, in particular, had been turned over to them for decision. Further, when there is a big yield from these cases,125 there is forthcoming a big yield from the land too, as they think. However, not only the Druids, but others as well,126 say that men's souls, and also the universe, are indestructible,127 although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them.

p247 5 In addition to their trait of simplicity and high-spiritedness,128 that of witlessness and boastfulness is much in evidence, and also that of fondness for ornaments; for they not only wear golden ornaments — both chains round their necks and bracelets round their arms and wrists — but their dignitaries wear garments that are dyed in colours and sprinkled with gold. And by reason of this levity of character they not only look insufferable when victorious, but also scared out of their wits when worsted.a Again, in addition to their witlessness, there is also that custom, barbarous and exotic, which attends most of the northern tribes — I mean the fact that when they depart from the battle they hang the heads of their enemies from the necks of their horses, and, when they have brought them home, nail the spectacle to the entrances of their homes. At any rate, Poseidonius says that he himself saw this spectacle in many places, and that, although at first he loathed it, afterwards, through his familiarity with it, he could bear it calmly. The heads of enemies of high repute, however, they used to embalm in cedar-oil and exhibit to strangers, and they would not deign to give them back even for a ransom of an equal weight of gold. But the Romans put a stop to these customs, as well as to all those connected with the sacrifices and divinations that are opposed to our usages. They used to strike a human being, whom they had devoted to death,129 in the back with a sabre, and then divine from his death-struggle. But they would not sacrifice without the Druids.130 We are told of still other p249kinds of human sacrifices; for example, they would shoot victims to death with arrows, or impale them in the temples, or, having devised a colossus of straw and wood, throw into the colossus cattle and wild animals of all sorts and human beings, and then make a burnt-offering of the whole thing.131

4 Besides some small islands round about Britain, there is also a large island, Ierne,153 which stretches parallel to Britain on the north, its breadth being greater than its length.154 Concerning this island I have nothing certain to tell, except that its inhabitants are more savage155 than the Britons, since they are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters,156 and since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their mothers and sisters; but I am saying this only with the understanding that I have no trustworthy p261witnesses for it; and yet, as for the matter of man-eating, that is said to be a custom of the Scythians also, and, in cases of necessity forced by sieges, the Celti,157 the Iberians,158 and several other peoples are said to have practised it.159 (Bold: See Geofry of Momouth)

Book V, Chapter 1 - 6 In early times, then, as I was saying,20 the country round about the Padus was inhabited for the most part by the Celti. And the largest tribes of the Celti were the Boii, the Insubri, and those Senones who, along with the Gaezatae, once seized the territory of the Romans at the first assault. These two peoples, it is true, were utterly destroyed by the Romans later on, 213but the Boii were merely driven out of the regions they occupied; and after migrating to the regions round about the Ister, lived with the Taurisci, and carried on war against the Daci until they perished, tribe and all — and thus they left their country, which was a part of Illyria, to their neighbours as a pasture-ground for sheep.
...Between the two cities is Butrium, a town belonging to Ravenna, and also Spina, which though now only a small village, long ago was a Greek city of repute.a At any rate, a treasury26 of the Spinitae is to be seen at Delphi; and everything else that history tells about them shows that they were once masters of the sea. Moreover, it is said that Spina was once situated by the sea, although at the present time the place is in the interior, about ninety stadia distant from the sea. Furthermore, it has been said that Ravenna was founded by the Thessalians; but since they could not bear the wanton outrages of the Tyrrhenians, they voluntarily took in some of the Ombrici,27 which latter still now hold the city, whereas the Thessalians themselves returned home. p317These cities, then, are for the most part surrounded by the marshes, and hence subject to inundations.
10 But the Cispadane peoples occupy all that country which is encircled by the Apennine Mountains towards the Alps as far as Genua and Sabata.47 The greater part of the country used to be occupied by the Boii, Ligures, Senones, and Gaezatae; but since the Boii have been driven out, and since both p325the Gaezatae and the Senones have been annihilated,48 only the Ligurian tribes and the Roman colonies are left. The Romans, however, have been intermingled with the stock of the Ombrici and also, in some places, with that of the Tyrrheni;49 for both these tribes, before the general aggrandizement of the Romans, carried on a sort of competition with one another for the primacy, and since they had only the River Tiber between them could easily cross over against one another. And if, as I suppose, one of the two peoples went forth on a campaign against a third people, the other of the two conceived a contentious desire not to fail to make an expedition to the same places; and so, too, when the Tyrrheni had sent forth an army into the midst of the barbarians round about the Padus and had fared well, and then on account of their luxurious living were quickly cast out again, the other of the two made an expedition against those who had cast them out; and then, in turns, disputing over the places, the two, in the case of many of the settlements, made some Tyrrhenian and some Ombrican — the greater number, however, Ombrican, for the Ombrici were nearer. But the Romans, upon taking control and sending settlers to many places, helped to preserve also the stocks of the earlier settlers. And at the present time, although they are all Romans, they are none the less called, some "Ombri," and some "Tyrrheni," as is the case with the Heneti, the Ligures, and the Insubri.
11 There are some famous cities in Cispadana and in the neighbourhood of the Padus: first, Placentia and Cremona...
But the Tiber flows from the Apennine Mountains, and is fed by many rivers; for a part of its course it runs through Tyrrhenia itself, and in its course thereafter separates from Tyrrhenia, first, Ombrica,67 then, the country of the Sabini and also that part of Latium which is near Rome and extends as far as the coastline. These three latter lie approximately parallel to the river and Tyrrhenia in their breadth and also to one another in their length; 219and they reach up to those parts of the Apennine Mountains which closely approach the Adriatic, in this order: first, Ombrica, then, after Ombrica, the country of the Sabini, and, last, Latium,— all of them beginning at the river. Now the country of the Latini lies between the coastline that stretches from Ostia as far as the city of Sinuessa and the country of the Sabini (Ostia is the port-town of the Roman navy — the port into which the Tiber, after flowing past Rome, empties), although it extends lengthwise as far as Campania and the mountains of the Samnitae. But the country of the Sabini lies between that of the Latini and that of the Ombrici, although it too extends to the mountains of the Samnitae, or rather it joins that part of the Apennines which is in the country of the Vestini, the Peligni, and the p337Marsi.68 And the country of the Ombrici lies between the country of the Sabini and Tyrrhenia, although it extends over the mountains as far as Ariminum and Ravenna. And Tyrrhenia, beginning at its proper sea69 and the Tiber, ceases at the very foot of those mountains which enclose it from Liguria to the Adriatic. I shall treat the several parts, however, in detail, beginning with the Tyrrheni themselves.
2 The Tyrrheni, then, are called among the Romans "Etrusci" and "Tusci". The Greeks, however, so the story goes, named them thus after Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys, who sent forth colonists hither from Lydia: At a time of famine and dearth of crops, Atys, one of the descendants of Heracles and Omphale, having only two children, by a casting of lots detained one of them, Lydus, and, assembling the greater part of the people with the other, Tyrrhenus, sent them forth. And when Tyrrhenus came, he not only called the country Tyrrhenia after himself, but also put Tarco in charge as "coloniser," and founded twelve cities; Tarco, I say, after whom the city of Tarquinia70 is named, who, on account of his sagacity from boyhood, is said by the myth-tellers to have been born with grey hair. Now at first the Tyrrheni, since they were subject to the orders of only one ruler, were very strong, but in later times, it is reasonable to suppose, their united government was dissolved, and the Tyrrheni, yielding to the violence of their neighbours, were broken up into separate cities; for otherwise they would not have given up a happy land and taken to the sea as pirates, different bands turning to different parts of the high seas; indeed, in all cases where they acted in concert, they were able, p339not only to defend themselves against those who attacked them, but also to attack in turn and to make long expeditions. But it was after the founding of Rome that Demaratus arrived, bringing with him a host of people from Corinth; and, since he was received by the Tarquinians,71 he married a native woman, by whom he begot Lucumo. And since Lucumo had proved a friend to Ancus Marcius, the king of the Romans, he was made king,72 and his name was changed to Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. 220Be that as it may, he too adorned Tyrrhenia, as his father had done before him — the father by means of the goodly supply of artisans who had accompanied him from home and the son by means of the resources supplied by Rome. It is further said that the triumphal, and consular, adornment, and, in a word, that of all the rulers, was transferred to Rome from Tarquinii,73 as also fasces, axes, trumpets, sacrificial rites, divination, and all music publicly used by the Romans. This Tarquinius was the father of the second Tarquinius, the "Superbus," who was the last of the kings and was banished.74 Porsinas, the king of Clusium,75 a Tyrrhenian city, undertook to restore him to the throne by force of arms, but was unable to do so, although he broke up the personal enmity against himself and departed as friend, along with honour and large gifts.
3 Thus much for the lustre of the Tyrrheni...But when those Lydians whose name was changed to Tyrrheni marched against the Agyllaei, one of them approached the wall and inquired what the name of the city was, and when one of the Thessalians on the wall, instead of replying to the inquiry, saluted him with a "Chaere,"83 the Tyrrheni accepted the omen, and, on capturing the city, changed its name accordingly.
4 As for the Pelasgi..For example, they prove to have been colonisers of Crete, as Homer says; at any rate, Odysseus says to Penelope: "But one tongue with others is mixed; there87 dwell Achaeans, there Cretans of the old stock, proud of heart, there Cydonians, and Dorians too, of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians." And Thessaly is called "the Pelasgian Argos" (I mean that part of it which lies between the outlets of the Peneius River and Thermopylae as far as the mountainous country of Pindus), on account of the fact that the Pelasgi extended their rule over these regions. Further, the Dodonaean Zeus is by the poet himself named "Pelasgian": "O Lord Zeus, Dodonaean, Pelasgian." And many have called also the tribes of Epirus p345"Pelasgian," because in their opinion the Pelasgi extended their rule even as far as that. And, further, because many of the heroes were called "Pelasgi" by name, the people of later times have, from those heroes, applied the name to many of the tribes; for example, they have called the island of Lesbos "Pelasgia," and Homer has called "Pelasgi" the people that were neighbours to those Cilicians who lived in the Troad: "And Hippothous led the tribes of spear-fighting Pelasgi, those Pelasgi who inhabited deep-soiled Larissa."88 But Ephorus' authority for the statement that this race originated in Arcadia was Hesiod; for Hesiod says: "And sons were born of god-like Lycaon, who, on a time, was begotten by Pelasgus." Again, Aeschylus, in his Suppliants,89 or else his Danaan Women,90 says that the race of the Pelasgi originated in that Argos which is round about Mycenae.91
nd Euripides too, in his Archelaus,93 says: "Danaus, the father of fifty daughters, on coming into Argos,94 took up his abode in the city of Inachus,95 and p347throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians were to be called Danaans." And again, Anticleides says that they were the first to settle the regions round about Lemnos and Imbros, and indeed that some of these sailed away to Italy with Tyrrhenus the son of Atys. And the compilers96 of the histories of The Land of Atthis97 give accounts of the Pelasgi, believing that the Pelasgi were in fact at Athens too,98 although the Pelasgi were by the Attic people called "Pelargi,"99 the compilers add, because they were wanderers and, like birds, resorted to those places whither chance led them.100
5 222They say that the maximum length of Tyrrhenia — the coastline from Luna as far as Ostia — is about two thousand five hundred stadia, and its breadth (I mean its breadth near the mountains)101 less than half its length.
8.... And Pyrgi has a temple of Eilethyia,132 an establishment of the Pelasgi; it was once rich, but it was robbed by Dionysius, the tyrant of the Sicilians, on his expedition to Cyrnus. And again, from Pyrgi to Ostia the distance is two hundred and sixty stadia; and in the interval are Alsium and Fregena. Thus much for the coastline of Tyrrhenia.
9 In the interior there are still other cities besides those already mentioned — Arretium, Perusia, Volsinii, and Sutrium; and, besides these, numerous small towns — Blera, Ferentinum, Falerii, Faliscum, Nepeta, Statonia, and several others; some of them are constituted as of old, while others the Romans have colonised, or else have brought low, as they did Veii,133 which had oftentimes gone to war with them, and as they did Fidenae.134 Some, however, call the Falerii, not "Tyrrheni,"135 but "Falisci," a special and distinct tribe; again, others call Faliscum a city with p367a special language all its own; and others mean by Faliscum "Aequum Faliscum,"136 which is situated on the Flaminian Way between Ocricli and Rome.137 The city of Feronia is at the foot of Mount Soracte, with the same name as a certain native goddess, a goddess greatly honoured by the surrounding peoples; her sacred precinct is in the place; and it has remarkable ceremonies, for those who are possessed by this goddess walk with bare feet through a great heap of embers and ashes without suffering;138 and a multitude of people come together at the same time, for the sake not only of attending the festal assembly, which is held here every year, but also of seeing the aforesaid sight. But Arretium, which is near the mountains, is farthest of all in the interior; at any rate, it is twelve hundred stadia distant from Rome, while Clusium is only eight hundred; and Perusia is near these two. The lakes, too, contribute to the prosperity of Tyrrhenia, being both large and numerous; for they are navigable, and also give food to quantities of fish and to the various marsh-birds; quantities of cat-tail, too, and papyrus, and downy plumes of the reed, are transported by rivers into Rome — rivers which are sent forth by the lakes as far as the Tiber; and among these are the Ciminian Lake,139 the lake near Volsinii,140 the lake near p369Clusium,141 and the lake that is nearest Rome and the sea — Lake Sabata.142 But the lake that is farthest away and that is near Arretium is Trasumenna,143 near which is the pass by which an army may debouch into Tyrrhenia from Celtica,144 the very pass which Hannibal used;145 there are two, however, this one and the one towards Ariminum through Ombrica. Now the one towards Ariminum is better, since the mountains become considerably lower there; 227and yet, since the defiles on this pass were carefully guarded, Hannibal was forced to choose the more difficult pass, but, for all that, he got control of it, after having conquered Flaminius in great battles. Furthermore, there are abundant hot springs in Tyrrhenia, and, because of the fact that they are near Rome, they have a population not less than the springs at Baiae, which are by far the most widely renowned of all.146
10 Alongside Tyrrhenia, on the part toward the east, lies Ombrica
11...It is said that Aeneas, along with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius, after putting in at Laurentum, which was on the shore near Ostia and the Tiber, founded a city a little above the sea, within about twenty-four stadia from it; and Latinus, the king of the aborigines, who lived in this place where Rome now is, on making them a visit, used Aeneas and his people as allies against the neighbouring Rutuli who occupied Ardea (the distance from Ardea to Rome is one hundred and sixty stadia), and after his victory founded a city near by, naming it after his daughter Lavinia; and when the Rutuli joined battle again, Latinus fell, but Aeneas was victorious, became king, and called his subjects "Latini"; and after the death of both Aeneas and his father Anchises, Ascanius founded Alba and Mount Albanus, which Mount is the same distance from Rome as Ardea. Here the Romans in company with the Latini — I mean the joint assembly of all their magistrates — offered sacrifice to Zeus; and the assembly put one of the young nobles in charge of the city as governor for the time of the sacrifice. But it is four hundred p381years later that the stories about Amollius172 and his brother Numitor are placed — stories partly fabulous but partly closer to the truth. In the first place, both brothers succeeded to the rule of Alba (which extended as far as the Tiber) from the descendants of Ascanius; but Amollius, the younger, elbowed the elder out and reigned alone; but since Numitor had a son and a daughter, Amollius treacherously murdered the son while on a hunt, and appointed the daughter, in order that she might remain childless, a priestess of Vesta, so as to keep her a virgin (she is called Rhea Silvia); then, on discovering that she had been ruined (for she gave birth to twins), instead of killing her, he merely incarcerated her, to gratify his brother, and exposed the twins on the banks of the Tiber in accordance with an ancestral custom. In mythology, however, we are told that the boys were begotten by Ares, and that after they were exposed people saw them being suckled by a she-wolf; but Faustulus, one of the swineherds near the place, took them up and reared them (but we must assume that it was some influential man, a subject of Amollius, that took them and reared them), and called one Romulus and the other Romus;173 and upon reaching manhood they attacked Amollius and his sons, and upon the defeat of the latter and the reversion of the rule to Numitor, they went back home and founded Rome — in a place which was suitable more as a matter p383of necessity than of choice;174 230for neither was the site naturally strong, nor did it have enough land of its own in the surrounding territory to meet the requirements of a city,175 nor yet, indeed, people to join with the Romans as inhabitants; for the people who lived thereabouts were wont to dwell by themselves (though their territory almost joined the walls of the city that was being founded), not even paying any attention to the Albani themselves. And there was Collatia, and Antemnae, and Fidenae, and Labicum, and other such places — then little cities, but now mere villages, or else estates of private citizens — all at a distance from Rome of thirty stadia, or a little more. At any rate, between the fifth and the sixth of those stones which indicate the miles from Rome there is a place called "Festi," and this, it is declared, is a boundary of what was then the Roman territory; and, further, the priests176 celebrate sacrificial festivals, called "Ambarvia,"177 on the same day, both there and at several other places, as being boundaries. Be this as it may, a quarrel arose at the time of the founding of the city, and as a result Remus was slain.178 After the founding Romulus set about collecting a promiscuous rabble by designating as an asylum a sacred precinct between the Arx and the Capitol,179 and by declaring citizens all the neighbours who fled p385thither for refuge. But since he could not obtain the right of intermarriage for these, he announced one horse-race, sacred to Poseidon, the rite that is still to-day performed; and when numerous people, but mostly Sabini, had assembled, he bade all who wanted a wife to seize the maidens who had come to the race. Titus Tatius, the king of the Curites, went to avenge180 the outrage by force of arms, but compromised with Romulus on the basis of partnership in the throne and state. But Tatius was treacherously murdered in Lavinium, and then Romulus, with the consent of the Curites, reigned alone. After Romulus, Numa Pompilius, a fellow-citizen of Tatius, succeeded to the throne, receiving it from his subjects by their own choice. This, then, is the best accredited story of the founding of Rome.
3 But there is another one, older and fabulous, in which we are told that Rome was an Arcadian colony and founded by Evander:— When Heracles was driving the cattle of Geryon he was entertained by Evander; and since Evander had learned from his mother Nicostrate (she was skilled in the art of divination, the story goes) that Heracles was destined to become a god after he had finished his labours, he not only told this to Heracles but also consecrated to him a precinct and offered a sacrifice to him after the Greek ritual, which is still to this day kept up in honour of Heracles. And Coelius himself,181 the Roman historian, puts this down as proof that Rome was founded by Greeks — the fact that at Rome the hereditary sacrifice to Heracles is after the Greek ritual. And the Romans honour also the p387mother of Evander, regarding her as one of the nymphs, although her name has been changed to Carmentis.182
4 231Be that as it may, the Latini at the outset were few in number...At the outset the Albani lived in harmony with the Romans, since they spoke the same language and p389were Latini, and though they were each, as it happened, ruled by kings, separate and apart, none the less they not only had the right of intermarriage with one another, but also held sacrifices — those at Alba — and other political rights in common; later on, however, war arose between them, with the result that all Alba was destroyed except the temple, and that the Albani were adjudged Roman citizens. As for the other neighbouring cities, some of them too were destroyed, and others humiliated, for their disobedience, while some were made even stronger than they were because of their loyalty. Now at the present time the seaboard is called Latium from Ostia as far as the city of Sinuessa, but in earlier times Latium had extended its seaboard only as far as Circaeum. Further, in earlier times Latium did not include much of the interior, but later on it extended even as far as Campania and the Samnitae and the Peligni and other peoples who inhabit the Apennines.

6 After Antium, within a distance of two hundred and ninety stadia, comes Circaeum, a mountain which has the form of an island, because it is surrounded by sea and marshes. They further say that Circaeum is a place that abounds in roots — perhaps because they associate it with the myth about Circe...A peculiar thing has taken place in the case of the Osci and the tribe of the Ausones. Although the Osci have disappeared, their dialect still remains among the Romans, so much so that, at the time of a certain traditional competition, poems in that dialect are brought on the stage and recited like mimes;190 again, although the Ausones never once lived on the Sicilian Sea, still the high sea is called "Ausonian."
Book V, Chapter 4 - ...Near it is the city of Auxumum, which is a short distance above the sea; then Septempeda, Pneuentia,273 Potentia and Firmum Picenum (its port-town is Castellum).274 Next in order comes the temple of Cupra,275 which was established, and founded as a city, by the Tyrrheni, who call Hera "Cupra"; then, the River Truentinus276 and the city named after it;277 then Castrum Novum, and the River Matrinus278 (General note: If Hera is Cupra, then the Etruscan Uni (L. Juno) cannot be Hera! Strabo's comparison deserves further analyses.)
...Beyond the Picentine country are the Vestini, the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, and the Frentani (a Samnitic tribe); they occupy the mountain-country there, their territory touching upon the sea for only short stretches. These tribes are small, it is true, but they are very brave and oftentimes have exhibited this virtue to the Romans: first, when they went to war against them; a second time, when they took the field with them as allies; p431and a third time when, begging for freedom and political rights without getting them, they revolted and kindled what is called the Marsic War, for they proclaimed Corfinium (the metropolis of the Peligni) the common city for all the Italiotes, instead of Rome, making it their base of operations for the war and changing its name to Italica;282 and here it was that they mustered all their followers and elected consuls and praetors.283 And they persisted in the war for two years, until they achieved the partnership for which they went to war.
...but Polybius clearly believes that they are two different tribes, for he says "the Opici and the Ausones live in this country round about the Crater." Again, others say that, although at first it was inhabited by the Opici, and also by the Ausones,299 later on it was taken by the Sidicini, an Oscan tribe,300 but the Sidicini were ejected by the Cumaei, and in turn the Cumaei by the Tyrrheni. For on account of its fertility, they continue, the plain became an object of contention; and the Tyrrheni founded twelve cities in the country and named their capital city "Capua";301 but on account of their luxury living they became soft, and consequently, just as they had been made to get out of the country round about the Padus,302 so now they had to yield this country to the Samnitae; and in turn the Samnitae were ejected by the Romans. A proof of the fruitfulness of the country is that it produces the finest grain — I mean the wheat from which groats are made, which is superior, not only to every kind of rice, but also to almost every kind of grain-food. . It is reported p437that, in the course of one year, some of the plains are seeded twice with spelt, the third time with millet, 243and others still the fourth time with vegetables. And indeed it is from here that the Romans obtain their best wine, namely, the Falernian, the Statanian, and the Calenian,303 though already the Sorrentine wine is taking its place as a rival of the three, for recent tests show that it admits of aging.

...Next in order after these two cities comes Cumae,306 a city founded in most ancient times by people from Chalcis and Cumae; for it is the oldest of all the Sicilian and the Italiote cities. However, the men who led the expedition, Hippocles of Cumae307 and Megasthenes of Chalcis, made an agreement with one another that the city should be a colony of Chalcis, and a namesake of Cumae; and, hence, although the city is now called Cumae, it is reputed to have been founded by the Chalcidians alone. In earlier times, then, the city was prosperous, and so was what is called the Phlegraean Plain, p439which mythology has made the setting of the story of the Giants —for no other reason, it would seem, than that the land, on account of its excellence, was a thing to fight for; but later on, when the Campani became established as masters of the city, they committed numerous outrages against the people in general, and, what is more, cohabited with the wives of the citizens. Nevertheless, many traces of the Greek decorum and usages are still preserved there. But according to some, "Cumae" is named after the "Kumata";308 for the neighbouring shore is surfy and exposed to the wind...
5 Near Cumae is Cape Misenum, and between them is the Acherusian Lake, a kind of shoal-water estuary of the sea. After you double Cape Misenum you immediately come to a harbour, at the base of the cape, and, after the harbour, to a stretch of coast which runs inland and forms a deeply indented gulf — 244the coast on which is situated Baiae, and those hot springs that are suited both to the taste of the fastidious and to the cure of disease. Contiguous to Baiae is Gulf Lucrinus,311 and also, behind this gulf, Gulf Avernus,312 which forms a peninsula of the land that is cut off as far as Misenum, beginning from the p441transverse line which runs between Cumae and Avernus, for there remains an isthmus only a few stadia broad, that is, reckoning straight through the tunnel to Cumae itself and to the sea next to Cumae.313 The people prior to my time were wont to make Avernus the setting of the fabulous story of the Homeric "Necyia";314 and, what is more, writers tell us that there actually was an oracle of the dead here and that Odysseus visited it. Now Gulf Avernus is deep up to the very shore and has a clear outlet;315 and it has both the size and character of a harbour, although it is useless as a harbour because of the fact that Gulf Lucrinus lies before it and is somewhat shallow as well as considerable in extent. Again, Avernus is enclosed round about by steep hill-brows that rise above it on all sides except where you sail into it (at the present time they have been brought by the toil of man into cultivation, though in former times they were thickly covered with a wild and untrodden forest of large trees); and these hill-brows, because of the superstition of man, used to make the gulf a shadowy place. And the natives used to add the further fable that all birds that fly over it fall down into the water,316 being killed by the vapours that p443rise from it, as in the case of all the Plutonia.317 And people used to suppose that this too was a Plutonian place and that the Cimmerians318 had actually been there. At any rate, only those who had sacrificed beforehand and propitiated the nether deities could sail into Avernus, and priests who held the locality on lease it were there to give directions in all such matters; and there is a fountain of potable water at this place, on the sea, but people used to abstain from it because they regarded it as the water of the Styx; and the oracle, too, is situated somewhere near it; and further, the hot springs near by and Lake Acherusia319 betokened the River Pyriphlegethon.320 Again, Ephorus, in the passage where he claims the locality in question for the Cimmerians, says: They live in underground houses, which they call "argillae,"321 and it is through tunnels that they visit one another, back and forth, and also admit strangers to the oracle, which is situated far beneath the earth; and they live on what they get from mining, and from those who consult the oracle,322 and from the king of the country, who has appointed them fixed allowances;323 and those who live p445about the oracle have an ancestral custom, that no one should see the sun, but should go outside the caverns only during the night; and it is for this reason that the poet speaks of them as follows: "And never does the shining sun look upon them"; 245but later on the Cimmerians were destroyed by a certain king, because the response of the oracle did not turn out in his favour; the seat of the oracle, however, still endures, although it has been removed to another place. Such, then, are the stories the people before my time used to tell, but now that the forest round about Avernus has been cut down by Agrippa, and the tracts of land have been built up with houses, and the tunnel has been cut from Avernus to Cumae, all those stories have proven be mere myths; and yet the Cocceius324 who made, not only this tunnel, but also the one from Dicaearchia (near Baiae) to Neapolis, was pretty well acquainted with the story just now related about the Cimmerians, and it ..but at the time of Hannibal's expedition the Romans settled a colony there, and changed its name to Puteoli from the wells328 there — though some say that it was from the foul smell329 of the waters, since the whole district, as far as Baiae and Cumae, has a foul smell, because it is full of sulphur and fire and hot waters. And some believe that it is for this reason that the Cumaean country was called "Phlegra,"330 and that it is the wounds of the fallen giants, inflicted by the tunderbolts, that pour forth those streams of fire and water. And the city has become a very great emporium, since it has havens that have been made by the hand of man — a thing made possible by the natural qualities of the sand, for it is in proper proportion to the lime,331 and takes a firm set and solidity. And therefore, by mixing the sand-ash332 with the lime, they can run jetties out into the sea and thus make the wide-open shores p449curve into the form of bays, so that the greatest merchant-ships can moor therein with safety. 246Immediately above the city lies the Forum of Hephaestus,333 a plain shut in all round by exceedingly hot ridges, which in numerous places have fumaroles that are like chimneys and that have a rather noisome smell; and the plain is full of drifted sulphur.

Book VII Chapter II

2 Poseidonius is right in censuring the historians for these assertions, and his conjecture is not a bad one, that the Cimbri, being a piratical and wandering folk, made an expedition even as far as the region of Lake Maeotis, and that also the "Cimmerian" Bosporus39 was named after them, being equivalent to "Cimbrian," the Greeks naming the Cimbri "Cimmerii."
3 Writers report a custom of the Cimbri to this effect: Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who p171were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae;42 and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle,43 would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.

Book VII Chapter III

2 Now the Greeks used to suppose that the Getae were Thracians; and the Getae lived on either side the Ister, as did also the Mysi, these also being Thracians and identical with the people who are now called Moesi; from these Mysi sprang also the Mysi who now live between the Lydians and the p177Phrygians and Trojans. And the Phrygians themselves are Brigians, a Thracian tribe, as are also the Mygdonians, the Bebricians, the Medobithynians,59 the Bithynians, and the Thynians, and, I think, also the Mariandynians. These peoples, to be sure, have all utterly quitted Europe, but the Mysi have remained there. And Poseidonius seems to me to be correct in his conjecture that Homer designates the Mysi in Europe (I mean those in Thrace) when he says, "But back he turned his shining eyes, and looked far away towards the land of the horse-tending Thracians, and of the Mysi, hand-to-hand fighters"60 for surely, if one should take Homer to mean the Mysi in Asia, the statement would not hang together. Indeed, when Zeus turns his eyes away from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, it would be the act of a man who confuses the continents and does not understand the poet's phraseology to connect with Thrace the land of the Asiatic Mysi, who are not "far away," but have a common boundary with the Troad and are situated behind it and on either side of it, and are separated from Thrace by the broad Hellespont; for "back he turned" generally61 means "to the rear," and he who transfers his gaze from the Trojans to the people who are either in the rear of the Trojans 296or p179on their flanks, does indeed transfer his gaze rather far, but not at all "to the rear."62 Again, the appended phrase63 is testimony to this very view, because the poet connected with the Mysi the "Hippemolgi" and "Galactophagi" and "Abii," who are indeed the wagon-dwelling Scythians and Sarmatians. For at the present time these tribes, as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians (more indeed with those outside the Ister, but also with those inside). And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes — the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci. However, the Scordisci are by some called "Scordistae"; and the Taurisci are called also "Ligurisci"64 and "Tauristae."65

3 Poseidonius goes on to say of the Mysians that in accordance with their religion they abstain from eating any living thing, and therefore from their flocks as well; and that they use as food honey and milk and cheese, living a peaceable life, and for this reason are called both "god-fearing" and "capnobatae";66 and there are some of the Thracians who live apart from woman-kind; these are called "Ctistae,"67 and because of the honour in which they are held, have been dedicated to the gods and live with freedom from every fear; p181accordingly, Homer speaks collectively of all these peoples as "proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi and Abii, men most just," but he calls them "Abii" more especially for this reason, that they live apart from women, since he thinks that a life which is bereft of woman is only half-complete (just as he thinks the "house of Protesilaüs" is only "half complete," because it is so bereft68); and he speaks of the Mysians as "hand-to-hand fighters" because they were indomitable, as is the case with all brave warriors; and Poseidonius adds that in the Thirteenth Book69 one should read "Moesi, hand-to-hand fighters" instead of "Mysi, hand-to-hand fighters."
4 However, it is perhaps superfluous to disturb the reading that has had approval for so many years; for it is much more credible that the people were called Mysi at first and that later their name was changed to what it is now. And as for the term "Abii," one might interpret it as meaning those who are "without hearths" and "live on wagons" quite as well as those who are "bereft"; for since, in general, injustices arise only in connection with contracts and a too high regard for property, so it is reasonable that those who, like the Abii, live cheaply, on slight resources, should have been called "most just." In fact, the philosophers who put justice next to self-restraint strive above all things for frugality and personal independence; and consequently extreme self-restraint diverts some of them to the Cynical mode of life. But as for the statement that they live "bereft of women," the poet suggests nothing of the sort, and particularly in the country of the Thracians and p183of those of their number who are Getae. And see the statement of Menander about them, which, as one may reasonably suppose, was not invented by him but taken from history: 297"All the Thracians, and most of all we Getae (for I too boast that I am of this stock) are not very continent;"70 and a little below he sets down the proofs of their incontinence in their relations with women: "For every man of us marries ten or eleven women, and some, twelve or more; but if anyone meets death before he has married more than four or five, he is lamented among the people there as a wretch without bride and nuptial song." Indeed, these facts are confirmed by the other writers as well. Further, it is not reasonable to suppose that the same people regard as wretched a life without many women, and yet at the same time regard as pious and just a life that is wholly bereft of women.a And of course to regard as "both god-fearing and capnobatae" those who are without women is very much opposed to the common notions on that subject; for all agree in regarding the women as the chief founders of religion, and it is the women who provoke the men to the more attentive worship of the gods, to festivals, and to supplications, and it is a rare thing for a man who lives by himself to be found addicted to these things. See again what the same poet says when he introduces as speaker the man who is vexed by the money spent by the women in connection with p185the sacrifices: "The gods are the undoing of us, especially us married men, for we must always be celebrating some festival;"71 and again when he introduces the Woman-hater, who complains about these very things: "we used to sacrifice five times a day, and seven female attendants would beat the cymbals all round us, while others would cry out to the gods."72 So, then, the interpretation that the wifeless men of the Getae are in a special way reverential towards the gods is clearly contrary to reason, whereas the interpretation that zeal for religion is strong in this tribe, and that because of their reverence for the gods the people abstain from eating any living thing, is one which, both from what Poseidonius and from what the histories in general tell us, should not be disbelieved.

5 In fact, it is said that a certain man of the Getae, Zamolxis by name, had been a slave to Pythagoras, and had learned some things about the heavenly bodies from him,73 as also certain other things from the Egyptians, for in his wanderings he had gone even as far as Egypt; and when he came on back to his home-land he was eagerly courted by the rulers and the people of the tribe, because he could make predictions from the celestial signs; and at last he persuaded the king to take him as a partner in the government, on the ground that he was competent to report the will of the gods; and although at the outset he was only made a priest of the god who was most honoured in their country, 298yet afterwards he was even addressed as p187god, and having taken possession of a certain cavernous place that was inaccessible to anyone else he spent his life there, only rarely meeting with any people outside except the king and his own attendants; and the king cooperated with him, because he saw that the people paid much more attention to himself than before, in the belief that the decrees which he promulgated were in accordance with the counsel of the gods. This custom persisted even down to our own time, because some man of that character was always to be found, who, though in fact only a counsellor to the king, was called god among the Getae. And the people took up the notion that the mountain74 was sacred and they so call it, but its name is Cogaeonum,75 like that of the river which flows past it. So, too, at the time when Byrebistas,76 against whom already77 the Deified Caesar had prepared to make an expedition, was reigning over the Getae, the office in question was held by Decaeneus, and somehow or other the Pythagorean doctrine of abstention from eating any living thing still survived as taught by Zamolxis.
6 Now although such difficulties as these might fairly be raised concerning what is found in the text of Homer about the Mysians and the "proud Hippemolgi," yet what Apollodorus states in the preface to the Second Book of his work On Ships78 can by no means be asserted; for he approves the declaration of Eratosthenes, that although both p189Homer and the other early authors knew the Greek places, they were decidedly unacquainted with those that were far away, since they had no experience either in making long journeys by land or in making voyages by sea. And in support of this Apollodorus says that Homer calls Aulis "rocky"79 (and so it is), and Eteonus "place of many ridges,"80 and Thisbe "haunt of doves,"81 and Haliartus "grassy,"82 but, he says, neither Homer nor the others knew the places that were far away. At any rate, he says, although about forty rivers flow into the Pontus, Homer mentions not a single one of those that are the most famous, as, for example, the Ister, the Tanaïs, the Borysthenes, the Hypanis, the Phasis, the Thermodon, the Halys;83 and, besides, he does not mention the Scythians, but invents certain "proud Hippemolgi" and "Galactophagi" and "Abii"; and as for the Paphlagonians of the interior, he reports what he has learned from those who have approached the regions afoot, but he is ignorant of the seaboard,84 and naturally so, for at that time this sea was not navigable, and was called Axine85 because of its wintry storms and the ferocity of the tribes that lived around it, and particularly the Scythians, in that they sacrificed strangers, ate their flesh, and used their skulls as drinking-cups; 299but later it was called "Euxine,"86 when the Ionians founded cities on the seaboard. And, likewise, Homer is also ignorant of the facts about Egypt and Libya...
7 Just now I was discussing the Thracians, and the "Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters, and the proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just,"113 because I wished to make a comparison between the statements made by Poseidonius and myself and those made by the two men in question... However, as I was saying, let me put off everything else and look to what is now before me: they114 say that the poet through ignorance fails to mention the Scythians, or their savage dealings with strangers, in that p197they sacrifice them, eat their flesh, and use their skulls as drinking-cups, although it was on account of the Scythians that the Pontus was called "Axine," but that he invents certain "proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just" — people that exist nowhere on earth. How, then, could they call the sea "Axine" if they did not know about the ferocity or about the people who were most ferocious? And these, of course, are the Scythians. And were the people who lived beyond the Mysians and Thracians and Getae not also "Hippemolgi,"115 not also "Galactophagi"116 and "Abii"?117 In fact, even now118 there are Wagon-dwellers and Nomads, so called, who live off their herds, and on milk and cheese, and particularly on cheese made from mare's milk, and know nothing about storing up food or about peddling merchandise either, except the exchange of wares for wares. How, then, could the poet be ignorant of the Scythians if he called certain people "Hippemolgi and Galactophagi"? For that the people of his time were wont to call the Scythians "Hippemolgi," Hesiod, too, is witness in the words cited by Eratosthenes: "The Ethiopians, the Ligurians, and also the Scythians, Hippemolgi."119 Now wherein is it to be wondered at that, because of the widespread injustice connected with contracts in our country, Homer called "most just" and "proud" those who by no means spend their lives on contracts and money-getting but actually possess all things in common except sword and drinking-cup, and above all things have their p199wives and their children in common, in the Platonic way?120 Aeschylus, too, is clearly pleading the cause of the poet when he says about the Scythians: 301"But the Scythians, law-abiding, eaters of cheese made of mare's milk."121 And this assumption even now still persists among the Greeks; for we regard the Scythians the most straightforward of men and the least prone to mischief, as also far more frugal and independent of others than we are. And yet our mode of life has spread its change for the worse to almost all peoples, introducing amongst them luxury and sensual pleasures and, to satisfy these vices, base artifices that lead to innumerable acts of greed. So then, much wickedness of this sort has fallen on the barbarian peoples also, on the Nomads as well as the rest; for as the result of taking up a seafaring life they not only have become morally worse, indulging in the practice of piracy and of slaying strangers, but also, because of their intercourse with many peoples, have partaken of the luxury and the peddling habits of those peoples. But though these things seem to conduce strongly to gentleness of manner, they corrupt morals and introduce cunning instead of the straightforwardness which I just now mentioned.
9 Ephorus, in the fourth book of his history, the book entitled Europe (for he made the circuit136 of Europe as far as the Scythians), says towards the end that the modes of life both of the Sauromatae and of the other Scythians are unlike, for, whereas some are so cruel that they even eat human beings, others abstain from eating any living creature whatever. Now the other writers, he says, tell only about their savagery, because they know that the terrible and the marvellous are startling, but one should tell the opposite facts too and make them patterns of conduct, and he himself, therefore, will tell only about those who follow "most just" habits, for there are some of the Scythian Nomads who feed only on mare's milk,137 and excel all men in justice; and they are mentioned by the poets: by Homer, when he says that Zeus espies the land "of the Galactophagi and Abii, men most just," and by Hesiod, in what is called his Circuit of the Earth,138 when he says that Phineus is carried by the Storm Winds "to the land of the Galactophagi, who have their dwellings in wagons." Then Ephorus reasons out p207the cause as follows: since they are frugal in their ways of living and not money-getters, they not only are orderly towards one another, because they have all things in common, their wives, children, the whole of their kin and everything, 303but also remain invincible and unconquered by outsiders, because they have nothing to be enslaved for. And he cites Choerilus139 also, who, in his The Crossing of the Pontoon-Bridge which was constructed by Dareius,140 says, "the sheep-tending Sacae, of Scythian stock; but they used to live in wheat-producing Asia; however, they were colonists from the Nomads, law-abiding people." And when he calls Anacharsis "wise," Ephorus says that he belongs to this race, and that he was considered also one of Seven Wise Men because of his perfect self-control and good sense. And he goes on to tell the inventions of Anacharsis — the bellows, the two-fluked anchor and the potter's wheel. These things I tell knowing full well that Ephorus himself does not tell the whole truth about everything; and particularly in his account of Anacharsis (for how could the wheel be his invention, if Homer, who lived in earlier times, knew of it? "As when a potter his wheel that fits in his hands,"141 and so on); but as for those p209other things, I tell them because I wish to make my point clear that there actually was a common report, which was believed by the men of both early and of later times, that a part of the Nomads, I mean those who had settled the farthest away from the rest of mankind, were "galactophagi," "abii," and "most just," and that they were not an invention of Homer.
10 It is but fair, too, to ask Apollodorus to account for the Mysians that are mentioned in the verses of Homer, whether he thinks that these too are inventions142 (when the poet says, "and the Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters and the proud Hippemolgi"), or takes the poet to mean the Mysians in Asia. Now if he takes the poet to mean those in Asia, he will misinterpret him, as I have said before,143 but if he calls them an invention, meaning that there were no Mysians in Thrace, he will contradict the facts; for at any rate, even in our own times, Aelius Catus144 transplanted from the country on the far side of the Ister into Thrace145 fifty thousand persons from among the Getae, a tribe with the same tongue as the Thracians.146 And they live there in Thrace now and are called "Moesi" — whether it be that their people of earlier times were so called and that in Asia the name was changed to "Mysi,"147 or (what is more apposite to history and the declaration of the poet) that in earlier times their people in Thrace were called "Mysi." Enough, however, on this subject. I shall now go back to the next topic in the general description.
12 But there is also another division of the country which has endured from early times, for some of the people are called Daci, whereas others are called Getae — Getae, those who incline towards the Pontus and the east, and Daci, those who incline in the opposite direction towards Germany and the sources of the Ister. The Daci, I think, were called Daï in early times; whence the slave names "Geta" and "Daüs"156 which prevailed among the Attic people; for this is more probable than that "Daüs" is from those Scythians who are called "Daae,"157 for they live far away in the neighbourhood of Hyrcania, and it is not reasonable to suppose that slaves were brought into Attica from there; for the Attic people were wont either to call their slaves by the same names as those of the nations from which they were brought (as "Lydus" or "Syrus"), or addressed them by names that were prevalent in their countries (as "Manes" or else "Midas" for the Phrygian, or "Tibius" for the Paphlagonian). But though the tribe was raised to such a height by Boerebistas, it has been completely humbled by its own seditions and by the Romans; nevertheless, they are capable, even to-day, of sending forth an army of forty thousand men.
13 The Marisus River flows through their country into the Danuvius,158 on which the Romans used to convey their equipment for war; the "Danuvius" I say, for so they used to call the upper part of the river from near its sources on to the cataracts, I mean the part which in the main flows through the country, of the Daci, 305although they give the name "Ister" to the lower part, from the cataracts on to the Pontus, the part which flows past the country of the Getae. The language of the Daci is the same as that of the Getae. Among the Greeks, however, the Getae are better known because the migrations they make to either side of the Ister are continuous, and because they are intermingled with the Thracians and Mysians. And also the tribe of the Triballi, likewise Thracian, has had this same experience, for it has admitted migrations into this country, because the neighbouring peoples force them159 to emigrate into the country of those who are weaker; that is, the Scythians and Bastarnians and Sauromatians on the far side of the river often prevail to the extent that they actually cross over to attack those whom they have already driven out, and some of them remain there, either in the islands or in Thrace, whereas those160 on the other side are generally overpowered by the Illyrians. Be that as it may, although the Getae and Daci once attained to very great power, so that they actually could send forth an expedition of two hundred thousand men, they now find themselves reduced to as few as forty thousand, and they have come close to the point of yielding obedience to the Romans, though as yet p217they are not absolutely submissive, because of the hopes which they base on the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans.

17...Now the Roxolani, under the leadership of Tasius, carried on war even with the generals of Mithridates Eupator;184 they came for the purpose of assisting Palacus,185 the son of Scilurus, as his allies, and they had the reputation of being warlike; yet all barbarian races and light-armed peoples are weak when matched against a well-ordered and well-armed phalanx. At any rate, those people, about fifty thousand strong, could not hold out against the six thousand men arrayed with Diophantus, the general of Mithridates, and most of them were destroyed. They use helmets and corselets made of raw ox-hides, carry wicker shields, and have for weapons spears, bow, and sword; and most of the other barbarians are armed in this way. 307As for the Nomads, their tents, made of felt, are fastened on the wagons in which they spend their lives; and round about the tents are the herds which afford the milk, cheese, and meat on which they live; and they follow the grazing herds, from time to time moving to other places that have grass, living only in the marsh-meadows about Lake Maeotis in winter but also in the plains in summer.
4 Next in order comes the voyage of one thousand stadia along the coast of the country of the Iapodes; for the Iapodes are situated on the Albian Mountain, which is the last mountain of the Alps, is very lofty, and reaches down to the country of the Pannonians on one side and to the Adrias on the other. They are indeed a war-mad people, but they have been utterly worn out by Augustus. Their cities293 are Metulum,294 Arupini,295 Monetium,296 and Vendo.297 315Their lands are poor, the people living for the most part on spelt and millet. Their armour is Celtic, and they are tattooed like the rest of the Illyrians and the Thracians. After the voyage along the coast of the country of the Iapodes comes that along the coast of the country of the Liburni, the latter being five hundred stadia longer than the former; on this voyage is a river,298 which is navigable inland for merchant-vessels as far as the country of the Dalmatians, and also a Liburnian city, Scardo.299

Book VII Chapter 6
1 (318)The remainder of the country between the Ister and the mountains on either side of Paeonia consists of that part of the Pontic seaboard which extends from the Sacred Mouth of the Ister as far as the mountainous country in the neighbourhood of the Haemus and as far as the mouth at Byzantium...Then comes the Haemus Mountain, which reaches the sea here;365 then Mesembria, a colony of the Megarians, formerly called "Menebria" (that is, "city of Menas," because the name of its founder was Menas, while "bria" is the word for "city" in the Thracian language.

Book VII Chapter 7
1 (320)These alone, then, of all the tribes that are marked off by the Ister and by the Illyrian and Thracian mountains...Yet one might say that in the ancient p287times the whole of Greece was a settlement of barbarians, if one reasons from the traditions themselves: Pelops388 brought over peoples389 from Phrygia to the Peloponnesus that received its name from him; and Danaüs390 from Egypt; whereas the Dryopes, the Caucones, the Pelasgi, the Leleges, and other such peoples, apportioned among themselves the parts that are inside the isthmus — and also the parts outside, for Attica was once held by the Thracians who came with Eumolpus,391 Daulis in Phocis by Tereus,392 Cadmeia393 by the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and Boeotia itself by the Aones and Temmices and Hyantes.
2 As for the Pelasgi, I have already discussed them.396 As for the Leleges, some conjecture that they are the same as the Carians, and others that they were only fellow-inhabitants and fellow-soldiers of these; and this, they say, is why, in the territory of Miletus, certain settlements are called settlements of the Leleges, and why, in many places of Caria, tombs of the Leleges and deserted forts, known as "Lelegian forts," are so called. However, the whole of what is now called Ionia used to be inhabited by Carians and Leleges; but the Ionians themselves expelled them and took possession of the country, although in still earlier times the captors of Troy had driven the Leleges from the region about Ida that is near Pedasus and the Satnioïs River. So then, the very fact that the Leleges made common cause with the Carians might be considered a sign that they were barbarians. And Aristotle, in his Polities,397 also clearly indicates that they led a wandering life, not only with the Carians, but also apart from them, and from earliest times; for instance, in the Polity of the Acarnanians he says that the Curetes held a part of the country, whereas the Leleges, and then the Teleboaea, held the westerly part; and 322in the Polity of the Aetolians (and likewise in that of the Opuntii and the Megarians) he calls the Locri of to-day then and says that they took possession of Boeotia too; again, in the Polity of the Leucadians he names a certain indigenous Lelex, and also Teleboas, the son of a daughter of Lelex, and twenty-two sons of Teleboas, some of p291whom, he says, dwelt in Leucas.398 But in particular one might believe Hesiod when he says concerning them: "For verily Locrus was chieftain of the peoples of the Leleges, whom once Zeus the son of Cronus, who knoweth devices imperishable, gave to Deucalion — peoples399 picked out of earth";400 for by his etymology401 he seems to me to hint that from earliest times they were a collection of mixed peoples and that this was why the tribe disappeared. And the same might be said of the Caucones, since now they are nowhere to be found, although in earlier times they were settled in several places.

Book VIII Fragments
And one might suspect that it was from this Cissus that Homer's Iphidamas came, whose grandfather Cisseus "reared him," Homer says, in Thrace, which now is called Macedonia.
25 Mt. Bermium,525 also, is somewhere in this region; in earlier times it was occupied by Briges, a tribe of Thracians; some of these crossed over into Asia and their name was changed to Phryges.
25a The Geographer points out that the Phrygians too were called Brigians.
38 Some represent the Paeonians as colonists from the Phrygians, while others represent them as independent founders. And it is said that Paeonia has extended as far as Pelagonia and Pieria; that Pelagonia was called Orestia in earlier times, that Asteropaeus, one of the leaders who made the expedition from Paeonia to Troy, was not without good reason called "son of Pelegon," and that the Paeonians themselves were called Pelagonians.
45 The Sinti, a Thracian tribe, inhabit the island Lemnos; and from this fact Homer calls them Sinties, when he says, "where me the Sinties . . ."569
45a Lemnos: first settled by the Thracians who were called Sinties, according to Strabo.
47 Thrace as a whole consists of twenty-two tribes. But although it has been devastated to an exceptional degree, it can send into the field fifteen thousand cavalry and also two hundred thousand infantry. After Maroneia one comes to the city Orthagoria and to the region about Serrhium570 (a p369rough coasting-voyage) and to Tempyra, the left town of the Samothracians, and to Caracoma,571 another little town, off which lies the island Samothrace, and to Imbros, which is not very far from Samothrace; Thasos, however, is more than twice as far from Samothrace as Imbros is. From Caracoma one comes to Doriscus,572 where Xerxes enumerated his army;
49 Iasion and Dardanus, two brothers, used to live in Samothrace. But when Iasion was struck by a thunderbolt because of his sin against Demeter, Dardanus sailed away from Samothrace, went and took up his abode at the foot of Mount Ida, calling the city Dardania, and taught the Trojans the Samothracian Mysteries. In earlier times, however, Samothrace was called Samos.

50 Many writers have identified the gods that are worshipped in Samothrace with the Cabeiri, though they cannot say who the Cabeiri themselves are, just as the Cyrbantes and Corybantes, and likewise the Curetes and the Idaean Dactyli, are identified with them.
50a this Thracian island, according to the Geographer, is called Samos because of its height; for "samoi," he said, means "heights." . . . And from Mycale settled in the island, which had been deserted because of a dearth of crops, and that in this way it was called Samos. . . . And the Geographer records also that in earlier times Samothrace was called Melite, as also that it was rich; for p373Cilician pirates, he says, secretly broke into the temple in Samothrace, robbed it, and carried off more than a thousand talents. (See wikipedia.net "Cabiri, Kabeiroi were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshiped in a mystery cult closely associated with that of Hephaestus..The Cabeiri, and the Samothracian gods, may include Hittite, Thracian, Etruscan, or Phrygian elements..")

65 The same Geographer says also that the Ister was once called the "Matoas" — that is, in Greek, "Asius";613 and that, although the Scythians had often crossed over it without suffering any mishap, p387yet, when once a misfortune befell them, its name was changed to Danubis or Daüsis, as though it were to blame for their mistake.
66 The Geographer also says that Hades was much revered there.614

Book VIII Chapter 3

17 There are several accounts of the Cauconians; for it is said that, like the Pelasgians, they were an Arcadian tribe, and, again like the Pelasgians, that they were a wandering tribe. At any rate, the poet94 tells us that they came to Troy as allies of the Trojans. But he does not say whence they come, though they seem to have come from Paphlagonia; for in Paphlagonia there is a people called Cauconiatae whose territory borders on that of the Mariandyni, who are themselves Paphlagonians.
...Alpheius was so named from its being a cure for leprosy. At any rate, since both the sluggishness of the Anigrus and the back-wash from the sea give p63fixity rather than current to its waters, it was called the "Minyeius" in earlier times, so it is said, though some have perverted the name and made it "Minteius"106 instead. But the word had other sources of derivation, either from the people who went forth with Chloris, the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus, or from the Minyans, who, being descendants of the Argonauts, were first driven out of Lemnos into Lacedaemon, and thence into Triphylia, and took up their abode about Arenê in the country which is now called Hypaesia, though it no longer has the settlements of the Minyans. Some of these Minyans sailed with Theras, the son of Autesion, who was a descendant of Polyneices, to the island107 which is situated between Cyrenaea and Crete ("Callistê its earlier name, but Thera its later," as Callimachus108 says), and founded Thera, the mother-city of Cyrenê, and designated the island by the same name as the city.

Book VIII Chapter 6
15 Epidaurus used to be called Epicarus......And the Bacchiadae, a rich and numerous and illustrious family, became tyrants of Corinth, and held their empire for nearly two hundred years, and without disturbance reaped the fruits of the commerce; and when Cypselus overthrew these, he himself became tyrant, and his house endured for three generations; and an evidence of the wealth of this house is the offering which Cypselus dedicated at Olympia, a huge statue of beaten gold.390 Again, Demaratus, p191one of the men who had been in power at Corinth, fleeing from the seditions there, carried with him so much wealth from his home to Tyrrhenia that not only he himself became the ruler of the city391 that admitted him, but his son was made king of the Romans.392 (Tarquinus Priscus). And the temple of Aphroditê was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess.

Book X Chapter 3
7 The accounts which are more remotely related, however, to the present subject, but are wrongly, on account of the identity of the names, brought into the same connection by the historians — I mean those accounts which, although they are called "Curetan History" and "History of the Curetes," just as if they were the history of those Curetes who lived in Aetolia and Acarnania, not only are different from that history, but are more like the accounts of the Satyri, Sileni, Bacchae, and Tityri; for the Curetes, like these, are called genii or ministers of gods by those who have handed down to us the Cretan and the Phrygian traditions, which are interwoven with certain sacred rites, some mystical, the others connected in part with the rearing of the child Zeus22 in Crete and in part with the orgies in honour of the mother of the gods which are celebrated in Phrygia and in the region of the Trojan Ida. But the variation in these accounts is so small that, whereas some represent the Corybantes, the Cabeiri, the Idaean Dactyli, and the Telchines as identical with the Curetes, others represent them as all kinsmen of one another and differentiate only certain small matters in which they differ in respect to one another; but, roughly speaking and in general, they represent them, one and all, as a kind of inspired people and as subject to Bacchic frenzy, and, in the guise of ministers, as inspiring terror at the celebration of the sacred rites by means of war-dances, accompanied by uproar and noise and cymbals and drums and arms, and also by flute and outcry; and consequently these rites are in a way regarded as having a common relationship, I mean these and those of the Samothracians and those in Lemnos and in several other places, because the divine ministers are called the same. However, every investigation of this kind pertains to theology, and is not foreign to the speculation of the philosopher.
8 But since also the historians, because of the identity of name of the Curetes, have classed together things that are unlike, neither should I myself shrink from discussing them at greater length, by way of digression, adding such account of their physical habits as is appropriate to history. And yet some historians even wish to assimilate their physical habits with those others, and perhaps there is something plausible in their undertaking. For instance, they say that the Curetes of Aetolia got this name because, like "girls,"23 they wore women's clothes, for, they add, there was a fashion of this kind among the Greeks, and the Ionians were called "tunic-trailing,"24 and the soldiers of Leonidas were "dressing their hair"25 when they were to go forth to battle, so that the Persians, it is said, conceived a contempt for them, though in the battle they marvelled at them. Speaking generally, the art of caring for the hair consists both in its nurture and in the way it is cut, and both are given special attention by "girls" and "youths";26 so that there are several ways in which it is easy to derive an etymology of the word "Curetes." It is reasonable to suppose, also, that the war-dance was first introduced by persons who were trained in this particular way in the matter of hair and dress, these being called Curetes, and that this dance afforded a pretext to those also who were more warlike than the rest and spent their life under arms, so that they too came to be called by the same name, "Curetes " — I mean the Curetes in Euboea, Aetolia, and Acarnania. And indeed Homer applied this name to young soldiers, choose thou the noblest young men27 from all the Achaeans, and bring the gifts from the swift ship, all that we promised yesterday to Achilles";28 and again, the young men of the Achaeans brought the gifts.29 So much for the etymology of the word "Curetes." The war-dance was a soldiers' dance; and this is plainly indicated both by the "Pyrrhic dance,"30 and by "Pyrrichus," who is said to be the founder of this kind of training for young men, as also by the treatises on military affairs.31
9 But I must now investigate how it comes about that so many names have been used of one and the same thing, and the theological element contained in their history. Now this is common both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to perform their sacred rites in connection with the relaxation of a festival, these rites being performed sometimes with religious frenzy, sometimes without it; sometimes with music, sometimes not; and sometimes in secret, sometimes openly. And it is in accordance with the dictates of nature that this should be so, for, in the first place, the relaxation draws the mind away from human occupations and turns the real mind towards that which is divine; and, secondly, the religious frenzy seems to afford a kind of divine inspiration and to be very like that of the soothsayer; and, thirdly, the secrecy with which the sacred rites are concealed induces reverence for the divine, since it imitates the nature of the divine, which is to avoid being perceived by our human senses; and, fourthly, music, which includes dancing as well as rhythm and melody, at the same time, by the delight it affords and by its artistic beauty, brings us in touch with the divine, and this for the following reason; for although it has been well said that human beings then act most like the gods when they are doing good to others, yet one might better say, when they are happy; and such happiness consists of rejoicing, celebrating festivals, pursuing philosophy, and engaging in music; for, if music is perverted when musicians turn their art to sensual delights at symposiums and in orchestric and scenic performances and the like, we should not lay the blame upon music itself, but should rather examine the nature of our system of education, since this is based on music.
10 And on this account Plato...And by the same course of reasoning they also attribute to music the upbuilding of morals, believing that everything which tends to correct the mind is close to the gods. Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysus, Apollo, Hecate, the Muses, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bacchic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name "Iacchus" not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the genius of Demeter. And branch-bearing, choral dancing, and initiations are common elements in the worship of these gods. As for the Muses and Apollo, the Muses preside over the choruses, whereas Apollo presides both over these and the rites of divination...
11 In Crete, not only these rites, but in particular those sacred to Zeus, were performed along with orgiastic worship and with the kind of ministers who were in the service of Dionysus, I mean the Satyri. These ministers they called "Curetes," young men who executed movements in armour, accompanied by dancing, as they set forth the mythical story of the birth of Zeus; in this they introduced Cronus as accustomed to swallow his children immediately after their birth, and Rhea as trying to keep her travail secret and, when the child was born, to get it out of the way and save its life by every means in her power; and to accomplish this it is said that she took as helpers the Curetes, who, by surrounding the goddess with tambourines and similar noisy instruments and with war-dance and uproar, were supposed to strike terror into Cronus and without his knowledge to steal his child away; and that, according to tradition, Zeus was actually reared by them with the same diligence; consequently the Curetes, either because, being young, that is "youths,"34 they performed this service, or because they "reared" Zeus "in his youth"35 (for both explanations are given), were accorded this appellation, as if they were Satyrs, so to speak, in the service of Zeus. Such, then, were the Greeks in the matter of orgiastic worship.
12 But as for the Berecyntes,36 a tribe of Phrygians, and the Phrygians in general, and those of the Trojans who live round Ida, they too hold Rhea in honour and worship her with orgies, calling her Mother of the gods and Agdistis and Phrygia the Great Goddess, and also, from the places where she is worshipped, Idaea and Dindymene and Sipylene and Pessinuntis and Cybele and Cybebe.37 The Greeks use the same name "Curetes" for the ministers of the goddess, not taking the name, however, from the same mythical story,38 but regarding them as a different set of "Curetes," helpers as it were, analogous to the Satyri; and the same they also call Corybantes.

13 The poets bear witness to such views as I have suggested. For instance, when Pindar, in the dithyramb which begins with these words, In earlier times there marched39 the lay of the dithyrambs long drawn out, mentions the hymns sung in honour of Dionysus, both the ancient and the later ones, and then, passing on from these, says, To perform the prelude in thy honour, great Mother, the whirling of cymbals is at hand, and among them, also, the clanging of castanets, and the torch that blazeth beneath the tawny pine-trees, he bears witness to the common relationship between the rites exhibited in the worship of Dionysus among the Greeks and those in the worship of the Mother of the gods among the Phrygians, for he makes these rites closely akin to one another. And Euripides does likewise, in his Bacchae, citing the Lydian usages at the same time with those of Phrygia, because of their similarity: But ye who left Mt. Tmolus, fortress of Lydia, revel-band of mine, women whom I brought from the land of barbarians as my assistants and travelling companions, uplift the tambourines native to Phrygian cities, inventions of mine and mother Rhea.40 And again, happy he who, blest man, initiated in the mystic rites, is pure in his life, . . . who, preserving the righteous orgies of the great mother Cybele, and brandishing the thyrsus on high, and wreathed with ivy, doth worship Dionysus. Come, ye Bacchae, come, ye Bacchae, bringing down41 Bromius,42 god the child of god, out of the Phrygian mountains into the broad highways of Greece.43 And again, in the following verses he connects the Cretan usages also with the Phrygian: O thou hiding-bower44 of the Curetes, and sacred haunts of Crete that gave birth to Zeus, where for me45 the triple-crested46 Corybantes47 in their caverns invented this hide-stretched circlet,48 and blent its Bacchic revelry with the high-pitched, sweet-sounding breath of Phrygian flutes, and in Rhea's hands placed its resounding noise, to accompany the shouts of the Bacchae,49 and from Mother Rhea frenzied Satyrs obtained it and joined it to the choral dances of the Trieterides,50 in whom Dionysus takes delight.51 And in the Palamedes the Chorus says,52 Thysa, daughter of Dionysus, who on Ida rejoices with his dear mother in the Iacchic revels of tambourines.
14 And when they bring Seilenus and Marsyas and Olympus into one and the same connection, and make them the historical inventors of flutes, they again, a second time, connect the Dionysiac and the Phrygian rites; and they often in a confused manner drum on53 Ida and Olympus as the same mountain. Now there are four peaks of Ida called Olympus, near Antandria; and there is also the Mysian Olympus, which indeed borders on Ida, but is not the same. At any rate, Sophocles, in his Polyxena, representing Menelaus as in haste to set sail from Troy, but Agamemnon as wishing to remain behind for a short time for the sake of propitiating Athena, introduces Menelaüs as saying, But do thou, here remaining, somewhere in the Idaean land collect flocks of Olympus and offer them in sacrifice.54

15 They invented names appropriate to the flute, and to the noises made by castanets, cymbals, and drums, and to their acclamations and shouts of "ev-ah," and stampings of the feet;55 and they also invented some of the names by which to designate the ministers, choral dancers, and attendants upon the sacred rites, I mean "Cabeiri" and "Corybantes" and "Pans" and "Satyri" and "Tityri," and they called the god "Bacchus," and Rhea "Cybele" or "Cybebe" or "Dindymene" according to the places where she was worshipped. Sabazius also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of the Mother, since he too transmitted the rites of Dionysus.56
16 Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says, O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging57 instruments; and he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus: one, holding in his hands the bombyces,58 toilsome work of the turner's chisel, fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae59 and again, stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls, and the semblance60 of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound; for these rites resemble the Phrygian rites, and it is at least not unlikely that, just as the Phrygians themselves were colonists from Thrace, so also their sacred rites were borrowed from there. Also when they identify Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus, they hint at the homogeneity of their sacred rites.
17 From its melody and rhythm and instruments, all Thracian music has been considered to be Asiatic. And this is clear, first, from the places where the Muses have been worshipped, for Pieria and Olympus and Pimpla and Leibethrum were in ancient times Thracian places and mountains, though they are now held by the Macedonians; and again, Helicon was consecrated to the Muses by the Thracians who settled in Boeotia, the same who consecrated the cave of the nymphs called Leibethrides. And again, those who devoted their attention to the music of early times are called Thracians, I mean Orpheus, Musaeus, and Thamyris; and Eumolpus,61 too, got his name from there. And those writers who have consecrated the whole of Asia, as far as India, to Dionysus, derive the greater part of music from there. And one writer says, "striking the Asiatic cithara"; another calls flutes "Berecyntian" and "Phrygian"; and some of the instruments have been called by barbarian names, "nablas," "sambyce," "barbitos," "magadis," and several others.
18 Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable to things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites that they were ridiculed therefore by comic writers; and among these were the Thracian and Phrygian rites. For instance, the Bendideian rites are mentioned by Plato,62 and the Phrygian by Demosthenes,63 when he casts the reproach upon Aeschines' mother and Aeschines himself that he was with her when she conducted initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march, and that many a time he cried out "evoe saboe," and "hyes attes, attes hyes"; for these words are in the ritual of Sabazius and the Mother.
19 Further, one might also find, in addition to these facts concerning these genii and their various names, that they were called, not only ministers of gods, but also gods themselves. For instance, Hesiod says that five daughters were born to Hecaterus and the daughter of Phoroneus, from whom sprang the mountain-ranging nymphs, goddesses, and the breed of Satyrs, creatures worthless and unfit for work, and also the Curetes, sportive gods, dancers.64 And the author of Phoronis65 speaks of the Curetes as "flute-players" and "Phrygians"; and others as "earth-born" and "wearing brazen shields." Some call the Corybantes, and not the Curetes, "Phrygians," but the Curetes "Cretes,"66 and say that the Cretes were the first people to don brazen armour in Euboea, and that on this account they were also called "Chalcidians";67 still others say that the Corybantes, who came from Bactriana (some say from among the Colchians), were given as armed ministers to Rhea by the Titans. But in the Cretan accounts the Curetes are called "rearers of Zeus," and "protectors of Zeus," having been summoned from Phrygia to Crete by Rhea. Some say that, of the nine Telchines68 who lived in Rhodes, those who accompanied Rhea to Crete and "reared" Zeus "in his youth"69 were named "Curetes"; and that Cyrbas, a comrade of these, who was the founder of Hierapytna, afforded a pretext to the Prasians70 for saying among the Rhodians that the Corybantes were certain genii, sons of Athena and Helius. Further, some call the Corybantes sons of Cronus, but others say that the Corybantes were sons of Zeus and Calliope and were identical with the Cabeiri, and that these went off to Samothrace, which in earlier times was called Melite, and that their rites were mystical.
20 But though the Scepsian,71 who compiled these myths, does not accept the last statement, on the ground that no mystic story of the Cabeiri is told in Samothrace, still he cites also the opinion of Stesimbrotus the Thasian 72 that the sacred rites in Samothrace were performed in honour of the Cabeiri: and the Scepsian says that they were called Cabeiri after the mountain Cabeirus in Berecyntia. Some, however, believe that the Curetes were the same as the Corybantes and were ministers of Hecate. But the Scepsian again states, in opposition to the words of Euripides,73 that the rites of Rhea were not sanctioned or in vogue in Crete, but only in Phrygia and the Troad, and that those who say otherwise are dealing in myths rather than in history, though perhaps the identity of the place-names contributed to their making this mistake. For instance, Ida is not only a Trojan, but also a Cretan, mountain; and Dicte is a place in Scepsia74 and also a mountain in Crete; and Pytna, after which the city Hierapytna75 was named, is a peak of Ida. And there is a Hippocorona in the territory of Adramyttium and a Hippocoronium in Crete. And Samonium is the eastern promontory of the island and a plain in the territory of Neandria and in that of the Alexandreians.76
21 Acusilaüs,77 the Argive, calls Cadmilus the son of Cabeiro and Hephaestus, and Cadmilus the father of three Cabeiri, and these the fathers of the nymphs called Cabeirides. Pherecydes78 says that nine Cyrbantes were sprung from Apollo and Rhetia, and that they took up their abode in Samothrace; and that three Cabeiri and three nymphs called Cabeirides were the children of Cabeiro, the daughter of Proteus, and Hephaestus, and that sacred rites were instituted in honour of each triad. Now it has so happened that the Cabeiri are most honored in Imbros and Lemnos, but they are also honored in separate cities of the Troad; their names, however, are kept secret.
Herodotus79 says that there were temples of the Cabeiri in Memphis, as also of Hephaestus, but that Cambyses destroyed them. The places where these deities were worshipped are uninhabited, both the Corybanteium in Hamaxitia in the territory now belonging to the Alexandreians near Sminthium,80 and Corybissa in Scepsia in the neighbourhood of the river Eurëeis and of the village which bears the same name and also of the winter torrent Aethalöeis. The Scepsian says that it is probable that the Curetes and the Corybantes were the same, being those who had been accepted as young men, or "youths," for the war-dance in connection with the holy rites of the Mother of the gods, and also as "corybantes" from the fact that they "walked with a butting of their heads" in a dancing way.81 These are called by the poet "betarmones":82 Come now, all ye that are the best 'betarmones' of the Phaeacians. 83 And because the Corybantes are inclined to dancing and to religious frenzy, we say of those who are stirred with frenzy that they are "corybantising."
22 Some writers say that the name "Idaean Dactyli" was given to the first settlers of the lower slopes of Mt. Ida, for the lower slopes of mountains are called "feet," and the summits "heads"; accordingly, the several extremities of Ida (all of which are sacred to the Mother of the gods) were called Dactyli.84 Sophocles85 thinks that the first male Dactyli were five in number, who were the first to discover and to work iron, as well as many other things which are useful for the purposes of life, and that their sisters were five in number, and that they were called Dactyli from their number. But different writers tell the myth in different ways, joining difficulty to difficulty; and both the names and numbers they use are different; and they name one of them "Celmis" and others "Damnameneus" and "Heracles" and "Acmon." Some call them natives of Ida, others settlers; but all agree that iron was first worked by these on Ida; and all have assumed that they were wizards and attendants of the Mother of the gods, and that they lived in Phrygia about Ida; and they use the term Phrygia for the Troad because, after Troy was sacked, the Phrygians, whose territory bordered on the Troad, got the mastery over it. And they suspect that both the Curetes and the Corybantes were offspring of the Idaean Dactyli; at any rate, the first hundred men born in Crete were called Idaean Dactyli, they say, and as offspring of these were born nine Curetes, and each of these begot ten children who were called Idaean Dactyli.

Book X, Chapter 4 -
9 Now, as for these two accounts, it is hard to say which is true; and there is another subject that is not agreed upon by all, some saying that Minos was a foreigner, but others that he was a native of the island. The poet, however, seems rather to advocate the second view when he says, Zeus first begot Minos, guardian o'er Crete. 29 In regard to Crete, writers agree that in ancient times it had good laws, and rendered the best of the Greeks its emulators, and in particular the Lacedaemonians, as is shown, for instance, by Plato30 and also by Ephorus, who in his Europe31 has described its constitution. But later it changed very much for the worse; for after the Tyrrhenians, who more than any other people ravaged Our Sea,32 the Cretans succeeded to the business of piracy; their piracy was later destroyed by the Cilicians; but all piracy was broken up by the Romans, who reduced Crete by war and also the piratical strongholds of the Cilicians. And at the present time Cnossus has even a colony of Romans.

16 As for their constitution, which is described by Ephorus...for when all citizens live a self-restrained and simple life there arises neither envy nor arrogance nor hatred towards those who are like them; and this is why the lawgiver commanded the boys to attend the "Troops,"50 as they are called, and the full grown men to eat together at the public messes which they call the "Andreia," so that the poorer, being fed at public expense, might be on an equality with the well-to-do; and in order that courage, and not cowardice, might prevail, he commanded that from boyhood they should grow up accustomed to arms and toils, so as to scorn heat, cold, marches over rugged and steep roads, and blows received in gymnasiums or regular battles; and that they should practise, not only archery, but also the war-dance, which was invented and made known by the Curetes at first, and later, also, by the man51 who arranged the dance that was named after him, I mean the Pyrrhic dance, so that not even their sports were without a share in activities that were useful for warfare; and likewise that they should use in their songs the Cretic rhythms, which were very high pitched, and were invented by Thales, to whom they ascribe, not only their Paeans and other local songs, but also many of their institutions; and that they should use military dress and shoes; and that arms should be to them the most valuable of gifts.
19 It is said by the Cretans, Ephorus continues, that Lycurgus came to them for the following reason: Polydectes was the elder brother of Lycurgus; when he died he left his wife pregnant...when he arrived he associated with Thales, a melic poet and an expert in lawgiving; and after learning from him the manner in which both Rhadamanthys in earlier times and Minos in later times published their laws to men as from Zeus, and after sojourning in Egypt also and learning among other things their institutions, and, according to some writers, after meeting Homer, who was living in Chios, he sailed back to his homeland, and found his brother's son, Charilaüs the son of Polydectes, reigning as king; [Note: wikipedia concludes that he lived about 950 B.C.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_(Sparta)]

STRABO BOOK XI, Chapter 2
(From http://www.perseus.tufts.edu)

(10) Upon sailing19 into the Corocondametis, we meet with [p. 223] Phanagoria, a considerable city, Cepi, Hermonassa, and Apa turum, the temple of Venus (Apatura)...(Note the similarity of Venus, Apatura, to TVRAN)
The authors most worthy of credit who have written the history of the Mithridatic wars, enumerate the Achæi first, then Zygi, then Heniochi, then Cercetæ, Moschi, Colchi, and above these the Phtheirophagi, Soanes, and other smaller nations about the Caucasus. [p. 226] The direction of the sea-coast is at first, as I have said, towards the east, with a southern aspect; but from Bata it makes a bend for a small distance, then fronts the west, and terminates towards Pityus, and Dioscurias, for these places are contiguous to the coast of Colchis, which I have already mentioned. Next to Dioscurias is the remainder of the coast of Colchis, and Trapezus contiguous to it; where the coast, having made a considerable turn, then extends nearly in a straight line, and forms the side on the right hand of the Euxine, looking to the north.
(15) This mountain overhangs both the Euxine and the Caspian seas, forming a kind of rampart to the isthmus which separates one sea from the other. To the south it is the boundary of Albania and Iberia, to the north, of the plains of the Sarmatians. It is well wooded, and contains various kinds of timber, and especially trees adapted to shipbuilding. Eratosthenes says that the Caucasus is called Mount Caspius by the natives, a name borrowed perhaps from the Caspii. It throws out forks towards the south, which embrace the middle of Iberia, and touch the Armenian and those called the Moschic mountains,27 (Note: The Moschic are the Tschilder mountains, of which Scydeces and Paryandres are a continuation.)
17...Above the rivers which I have mentioned in the Moschic territory is the temple of Leucothea,38 founded by Phrixus39 and his oracle, where a ram is not sacrificed.

18...The territory of the Moschi, in which is situated the temple, is divided into three portions, one of which is occupied by Colchians, another by Iberians, and the third by Armenians. There is in Iberia on the confines of Colchis, a small city, the city of Phrixus, the present Idessa, a place of strength. The river Charis42 flows near Dioscurias.
19...Some43 say that they are called Iberians (the same name as the western Iberians) from the gold mines found in both countries. The Soanes use poison of an extraordinary kind for the points of their weapons; even the odour of this poison is a cause of suffering to those who are wounded by arrows thus prepared.
The other neighbouring nations about the Caucasus occupy barren and narrow tracts of land. But the tribes of the Albanians and Iberians, who possess nearly the whole of the above-mentioned isthmus, may also be denominated Caucasian, and yet they live in a fertile country and capable of being well peopled. [p. 230]

Book XI, Chapter 3
(3) The plain is occupied by those Iberians who are more disposed to agriculture, and are inclined to peace. Their dress is after the Armenian and Median fashion. Those who inhabit the mountainous country, and they are the most numerous, are addicted to war, live like the Sarmatians and Scythians, on whose country they border, and with whom they are connected by affinity of race. These people however engage in agriculture also, and can assemble many myriads of persons from among themselves, and from the Scythians and Sarmatians, whenever any disturbance occurs.
(4) The men are distinguished for beauty of person and for size. They are simple in their dealings and not fraudulent, for they do not in general use coined money; nor are they acquainted with any number above a hundred, and transact their exchanges by loads. They are careless with regard to the other circumstances of life. They are ignorant of weights and measures as far as exactness is concerned; they are im- provident with respect to war, government, and agriculture. They fight however on foot and on horseback, both in light and in heavy armour, like the Armenians.

(5) They can send into the field a larger army than the Iberians, for they can equip 60,000 infantry and 22,000 horsemen; with such a force they offered resistance to Pompey. The Nomades also co-operate with them against foreigners, as they do with the Iberians on similar occasions. When there is no war they frequently attack these people and prevent them from cultivating the ground. They use javelins and bows, and wear breastplates, shields, and coverings for [p. 234] the head, made of the hides of wild animals, like the Iberians.
To the country of the Albanians belongs Caspiana, and has its name from the Caspian tribe, from whom the sea also has its appellation; the Caspian tribe is now extinct.

(7) The gods they worship are the Sun, Jupiter, and the Moon, but the Moon above the rest. She has a temple near Iberia. The priest is a person who, next to the king, receives the highest honours. He has the government of the sacred land, which is extensive and populous, and authority over the sacred attendants, many of whom are divinely inspired, and prophesy. Whoever of these persons, being violently possessed, wanders alone in the woods, is seized by the priest, who, having bound him with sacred fetters, maintains him sumptuously during that year. Afterwards he is brought forth at the sacrifice performed in honour of the goddess, and is anointed with fragrant ointment and sacrificed together with other victims. The sacrifice is performed in the following manner. A person, having in his hand a sacred lance, with which it is the custom to sacrifice human victims, advances out of the crowd and pierces the heart through the side, which he does from experience in this office. When the man has fallen, certain prognostications are indicated by the manner of the fall, and these are publicly declared. The body is carried away to a certain spot, and then they all trample upon it, performing this action as a mode of purification of themselves.
(8) The Albanians pay the greatest respect to old age, which is not confined to their parents, but is extended to old persons [p. 235] in general. It is regarded as impious to show any concern for the dead, or to mention their names. Their money is buried with them, hence they live in poverty, having no patrimony.
So much concerning the Albanians. It is said that when Jason, accompanied by Armenus the Thessalian, undertook the voyage to the Colchi, they advanced as far as the Caspian Sea, and traversed Iberia, Albania, a great part of Armenia, and Media, as the Jasoneia and many other monuments testify. Armenus, they say, was a native of Armenium, one of the cities on the lake Beebeis, between Pheræ and Parisa, and that his companions settled in Acilisene, and the Suspiritis, and occupied the country as far as Calachene and Adiabene, and that he gave his own name to Armenia.

Book XI, Chapter 5
3) There is a peculiarity in the history of the Amazons.
4) They are said to have founded cities, and to have given their names to them, as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Myrina, besides leaving sepulchres and other memorials. Themiscyra, the plains about the Thermodon, and the mountains lying above, are mentioned by all writers as once belonging to the Amazons, from whence, they say, they were driven out. Where they are at present few writers undertake to point out, nor do they advance proofs or probability for what they state; as in the case of Thalestria, queen of the Amazons, with whom Alexander is said to have had intercourse in Hyrcania with the hope of having offspring. Writers are not agreed on this point, and among many who have paid the greatest regard to truth none mention the circumstance, nor do writers of the highest credit mention anything of the kind, nor do those who record it relate the same facts. Cleitarchus says that Thalestria set out from the Caspian Gates and Thermodon to meet Alexander. Now from the Caspian Gates to Thermodon are more than 6000 stadia.

Book XII, Chapter 1
1 CAPPADOCIA consists of many parts, and has experienced frequent changes.
The nations speaking the same language are chiefly those who are bounded on the south by the Cilician Taurus,2 as it is called; on the east by Armenia, Colchis, and by the intervening nations who speak different languages; on the north by the Euxine, as far as the mouth of the Halys;3 on the west by the Paphlagonians, and by the Galatians, who migrated into Phrygia, and spread themselves as far as Lycaonia, and the Cilicians, who occupy Cilicia Tracheia (Cilicia the mountainous).4
(2) Among the nations that speak the same language, the ancients placed the Cataonians by themselves, contra-dis- tinguishing them from the Cappadocians, whom they considered as a different people. In the enumeration of the nations they placed Cataonia after Cappadocia, then the Euphrates, and the nations on the other side of that river, so as to include even Melitene in Cataonia, although Melitene lies between Cataonia and the Euphrates, approaches close to Commagene, and constitutes a tenth portion of Cappadocia, [p. 277] according to the division of the country into ten provinces. For the kings in our times who preceded Archelaus5 usually divided the kingdom of Cappadocia in this manner.
2...Cataonia is a tenth portion of Cappadocia. In our time each province had its own governor, and since no difference appears in the language of the Cataonians compared with that of the other Cappadocians, nor any difference in their customs, it is surprising how entirely the characteristic marks of a foreign nation have disappeared, yet they were distinct nations; Ariarathes, the first who bore the title of king of the Cappadocians, annexed the Cataonians to Cappadocia.
(3) This country composes the isthmus, as it were, of a large peninsula formed by two seas; by the bay of Issus, extending to Cilicia Tracheia, and by the Euxine lying between Sinope and the coast of the Tibareni.
The isthmus cuts off what we call the peninsula; the whole tract lying to the west of the Cappadocians, to which Herodotus6 gives the name of the country within the Halys. This is the country the whole of which was the kingdom of Crœsus. Herodotus calls him king of the nations on this side the river Halys. But writers of the present time give the name of Asia, which is the appellation of the whole continent, to the country within the Taurus.
This Asia comprises, first, the nations on the east, Paphlagonians, Phrygians, and Lycaonians; then Bithynians, Mysians, and the Epictetus; besides these, Troas, and Hellespontia; next to these, and situated on the sea, are the Æolians and Ionians, who are Greeks; the inhabitants of the remaining portions are Carians and Lycians, and in the inland parts are Lydians.

Book XII Chapter 2
MELITENE resembles Commagene, for the whole of it is planted with fruit-trees, and is the only part of all Cappadocia which is planted in this manner. It produces oil, and the wine Monarites, which vies with the wines of Greece. It is situated opposite to Sophene, having the river Euphrates flowing between it and Commagene, which borders upon it. In the country on the other side of the river is Tomisa, a considerable fortress of the Cappadocians. It was sold to the prince of Sophene for a hundred talents. Lucullus presented it afterwards as a reward of valour to the Cappadocian prince for his services in the war against Mithridates.
2) Cataonia is a plain, wide and hollow,1 and produces everything except evergreen trees. It is surrounded by mountains, and among others by the Amanus on the side towards the south, a mass separated from the Cilician Taurus, and also by the Anti-Taurus,2 a mass rent off in a contrary [p. 279] direction. The Amanus extends from Cataonia to Cilicia, and the Syrian sea towards the west and south. In this intervening space it comprises the whole of the gulf of Issus, and the plains of the Cilicians which lie towards the Taurus. But the Anti-Taurus inclines to the north, and a little also to the east, and then terminates in the interior of the country.(Note: Is this the Assyrian Que?)
(7) Two provinces only have cities. In the Tyanitis is Tyana,11 lying at the foot of the Taurus at the Cilician Gates,12 where are the easiest and the most frequented passes into Cilicia and Syria. It is called, `Eusebeia at the Taurus.' Tyanitis is fertile, and the greatest part of it consists of plains. Tyana is built upon the mound of Semiramis, which is fortified with good walls. At a little distance from this city are Castabala and Cybistra, towns which approach still nearer to the mountain. At Castabala is a temple of Diana Perasia, where, it is said, the priestesses walk with naked feet unhurt upon burning coals. To this place some persons apply the story respecting Orestes and Diana Tauropolus, and say that the goddess was called Perasia, because she was conveyed from beyond (peoiathen) sea.

In Tyanitis, one of the ten provinces above mentioned, is the city Tyana. But with these I do not reckon the cities that were afterwards added, Castabala, and Cybistra, and those in Cilicia Tracheia, to which belongs Elæussa, a small [p. 282] fertile island, which Archelaus furnished with excellent buildings, where he passed the greater part of his time.
In the Cilician province, as it is called, is Mazaca,13 (Kaiseria) the capital of the nation. It is also called `Eusebeia,' with the addition `at the Argæus,' for it is situated at the foot of the Argeus,14 the highest mountain in that district; its summit is always covered with snow. Persons who ascend it (but they are not many) say that both the Euxine and the sea of Issus may be seen from thence in clear weather.

Book XII, Chapter 3
(3) It is generally acknowledged by writers, that the Bithynians, who were formerly Mysians, received this name from Bithynians and Thyni, Thracian people, who came and settled among them. They advance as a proof of their statement, first as regards the Bithynians, that there still exists in Thrace a people called Bithynians, and then, as regards the Thyni, that the sea-shore, near Apollonia7 and Salmydessus,8 is called Thynias. The Bebryces, who preceded them as settlers in Mysia, were, as I conjecture, Thracians. We have said9 that the Mysians themselves were a colony of those Thracians who are now called Mæsi.
Such is the account given of these people.
(4) There is not, however, the same agreement among writers with regard to the Mariandyni, and the Caucones. For they say that Heracleia is situated among the Mariandyni, and was founded by Milesians.10 But who they are, or whence they came, nothing is said. There is no difference in language, nor any other apparent national distinction between them and the Bithynians, whom they resemble in all respects. It is probable therefore the Mariandyni were a Thracian tribe.
(7) Between Chalcedon and Heracleia are several rivers, as the Psillis,18 the Calpas, and the Sangarius, of which last the poet makes mention.19 It has its source at the village Sangias, at the distance of 150 stadia from Pessinus. It flows through [p. 289] the greater part of Phrygia Epictetus, and a part also of Bithynia, so that it is distant from Nicomedia a little more than 300 stadia, where the river Gallus unites with it. The latter river has its source at Modra in Phrygia on the Hellespont, which is the same country as the Epictetus, and was formerly occupied by the Bithynians.
(9) The boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east is the river Halys, which flows from the south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians; and according to Herodotus,23 (who means Cappadocians, when he is speaking of Syrians,) discharges itself into the Euxine Sea. Even at present they are called Leuco-Syrians, (or White Syrians,) while those without the Taurus are called Syrians. In comparison with the people within the Taurus, the latter have a burnt complexion; but the former, not having it, received the appellation of Leuco- Syrians (or White Syrians). Pindar says that `the Amazons commanded a Syrian band, armed with spears with broad iron heads;' thus designating the people that lived at Themiscyra.24 Themiscyra belongs to the Amiseni,25 and the district of the Amiseni to the Leuco-Syrians settled beyond the Halys.
The river Halys forms the boundary of the Paphlagonians to the east; Phrygians and the Galatians settled among that people, on the south; and on the west Bithynians and Mariandyni (for the race of the Caucones has everywhere entirely disappeared); on the north the Euxine. This country is divided into two parts, the inland, and the maritime, extending from the Halys as far as Bithynia. Mithridates Eupator possessed the maritime part as far as Heracleia, and of the inland country he had the district nearest to Heracleia, some parts of which extended even beyond the Halys. These are also the limits of the Roman province of Pontus. The remainder was subject to chiefs, even after the overthrow of Mithridates.
(20) These I suppose are the people who are called by Homer Halizoni, who in his Catalogue follow the Paphlagonians.
But Odius and Epistrophus led the Halizoni
Far from Alybe, where there are silver mines;74
Il. ii. 856.
whether the writing was changed from `far from Chalybe,' or whether the people were formerly called Alybes instead of Chalybes. We cannot at present say that it is possible that Chaldæi should be read for Chalybes, but it cannot be maintained that formerly Chalybes could not be read for Alybes, espe- [p. 298] cially when we know that names are subject to many changes, more especially among barbarians. For example, a tribe of Thracians were called Sinties, then Sinti, then Saii, in whose country Archilochus is said to have thrown away his shield: `one of the Saii exults in having a shield, which, without blame, I involuntarily left behind in a thicket.' This same people have now the name of Sapæi. For all these people were settled about Abdera, they also held Lemnos and the islands about Lemnos. Thus also Brygi, Briges, and Phryges are the same people; and Mysi, Mæones, and Meones are the same people. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances of this kind.

The Scepsian (Demetrius) throws some doubt on the alteration of the name from Alybes to Chalybes, but not understanding what follows, nor what accords with it, nor, in particular, why the poet calls the Chalybes Alizoni, he rejects the opinion that there has been an alteration of name. In comparing his opinion with my own I shall consider also the hypotheses entertained by others.
(21) Some persons alter the word to Alazones, others to Amazons, and `Alybe' to `Alope,' or `Alobe,' calling the Scythians above the Borysthenes Alazones and Callipidæ, and by other names, about which Hellanicus, Herodotus, and Eudoxus have talked very absurdly; some say that the Amazons were situated between Mysia, Caria, and Lydia near Cyme, which is the opinion also of Ephorus, who was a native of the latter place. And this opinion may not be unreasonable, for he may mean the country which in later times was inhabited by the Æolians and Ionians, but formerly by Amazons. There are some cities, it is said, which have their names from the Amazons; as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, and Myrina. But would any one think of inquiring in these places after Alybe, or, according to some writers, Alope, or Alobe; what would be the meaning of `from afar,' or where is the silver mine?
(22) These objections he solves by an alteration in the text, for he writes the verses in this manner,
But Odius and Epistrophus led the Amazons,
Who came from Alope, whence the tribe of the Amazonides.
But by this solution he has invented another fiction. For [p. 299] Alope is nowhere to be found in that situation, and the alteration in the text, itself a great change, and contrary to the authority of ancient copies, looks like an adaptation formed for the occasion.
The Amazons were not allies, because Priam had fought in alliance with the Phrygians against them: `at that time, says Priam, I was among their auxiliaries on that day, when the Amazons came to attack them.'81
The people also who were living on the borders of the country of the Amazons were not situated at so great a distance that it was difficult to send for them from thence, nor did any animosity exist, I suppose, at that time to prevent them from affording assistance.
(25) Nor is there any foundation for the opinion, that all the ancients agree that no people from the country beyond the Halys took part in the Trojan war. Testimony may be found to the contrary. Mæandrius at least says that Heneti came from the country of the Leuco-Syrians to assist the Trojans in the war; that they set sail thence with the Thracians, and settled about the recess of the Adriatic; and that the Heneti, who had no place in the expedition, were Cappadocians. This account seems to agree with the circumstance, that the people inhabiting the whole of that part of Cappadocia near the Halys, which extends along Paphlagonia, speak two dialects, and that their language abounds with Paphlagonian names, as [p. 302] Bagas, Biasas, Æniates, Rhatotes, Zardoces, Tibius, Gasys, Oligasys, and Manes. For these names are frequently to be found in the Bamonitis, the Pimolitis, the Gazaluitis, and Gazacene, and in most of the other districts. Apollodorus himself quotes the words of Homer, altered by Zenodotus,

from Henete, whence comes a race of wild mules,

and says, that Hecatæus the Milesian understands Henete to mean Amisus. But we have shown that Amisus belongs to the Leuco-Syrians, and is situated beyond the Halys.
(26) He also somewhere says that the poet obtained his knowledge of the Paphlagonians, situated in the interior, from persons who had travelled through the country on foot, but that he was not acquainted with the sea-coast any more than with the rest of the territory of Pontus; for otherwise he would have mentioned it by name. We may, on the contrary, after the description which has just been given of the country, retort and say that he has traversed the whole of the sea-coast, and has omitted nothing worthy of record which existed at that time. It is not surprising that he does not mention Heracleia, Amastris, or Sinope, for they were not founded; nor is it strange that he should omit to speak of the interior of the country; nor is it a proof of ignorance not to specify by name many places which were well known, as we have shown in a preceding part of this work.
(31) There also is the Cainochorion, (New Castle,) as it is called, a fortified and precipitous rock, distant from Cabeira less than 200 stadia. On its summit is a spring, which throws up abundance of water, and at its foot a river, and a deep ravine. The ridge of rocks on which it stands is of very great height, so that it cannot be taken by siege. It is enclosed with an excellent wall, except the part where it has been demolished by the Romans. The whole country around is so covered with wood, so mountainous, and destitute of water, that an enemy cannot encamp within the distance of 120 stadia. There Mithridates had deposited his most valuable effects, which are now in the Capitol, as offerings dedicated by Pompey.
Pythodoris is in possession of all this country; (for it is contiguous to that of the barbarians, which she holds as a conquered country;) she also holds the Zelitis and the Megalopolitis. After Pompey had raised Cabeira to the rank of a city, and called it Diospolis, Pythodoris improved it still more, changed its name to Sebaste, (or Augusta,) and considers it a royal city.
She has also the temple of Men (Meen) surnamed of Pharnaces, at Ameria, a village city, inhabited by a large body of sacred menials, and having annexed to it a sacred territory, the produce of which is always enjoyed by the priest. The kings held this temple in such exceeding veneration, that this was the Royal oath, `by the fortune of the king, and by Men of [p. 307] Pharnaces.' This is also the temple of the moon, like that among the Albani, and those in Phrygia, namely the temple of Men (Meen) in a place of the same name, the temple of Ascæus at Antioch in Pisidia, and another in the territory of Antioch.

(36) Comana is populous, and is a considerable mart, frequented by persons coming from Armenia. Men and women assemble there from all quarters from the cities and the country to celebrate the festival at the time of the exodi or processions of the goddess. Some persons under the obligation of a vow are always residing there, and perform sacrifices in honour of the goddess.
The inhabitants are voluptuous in their mode of life. All their property is planted with vines, and there is a multitude of women, who make a gain of their persons, most of whom are dedicated to the goddess. The city is almost a little Corinth. On account of the multitude of harlots at Corinth, who are dedicated to Venus, and attracted by the festivities of the place, strangers resorted thither in great numbers. Merchants and soldiers were quite ruined, so that hence the proverb originated, `every man cannot go to Corinth.' Such is the character of Comana.
(37) All the country around is subject to Pythodoris, and she possesses also Phanarœa, the Zelitis, and the Megalopolitis.
We have already spoken of Phanarœa.
In the district Zelitis is the city Zela,89 built upon the mound of Semiramis. It contains the temple of Anaitis, whom the Armenians also worship. Sacrifices are performed with more pomp than in other places, and all the people of Pontus take oaths here in affairs of highest concern. The multitude of the sacred menials, and the honours conferred upon the priests, were in the time of the kings, upon the plan which I have before described. At present, however, everything is under the power of Pythodoris, but many persons had previously reduced the number of the sacred attendants, injured the property and diminished the revenue belonging to the [p. 310] temple. The adjacent district of Zelitis, (in which is the city Zela, on the mound of Semiramis,) was reduced by being divided into several governments. Anciently, the kings did not govern Zela as a city, but regarded it as a temple of the Persian gods; the priest was the director of everything relating to its administration. It was inhabited by a multitude of sacred menials, by the priest, who possessed great wealth, and by his numerous attendants; the sacred territory was under the authority of the priest, and it was his own property. Pompey added many provinces to Zelitis, and gave the name of city to Zela, as well as to Megalopolis. He formed Zelitis, Culupene, and Camisene, into one district. The two latter bordered upon the Lesser Armenia, and upon Laviansene. Fossile salt was found in them, and there was an ancient fortress called Camisa, at present in ruins. The Roman governors who next succeeded assigned one portion of these two governments to the priests of Comana, another to the priest of Zela, and another to Ateporix, a chief of the family of the tetrarchs of Galatia; upon his death, this portion, which was not large, became subject to the Romans under the name of a province. This little state is a political body of itself, Carana90 being united with it as a colony, and hence the district has the name of Caranitis. The other parts are in the possession of Pythodoris, and Dyteutus.

Book XII, Chapter 4
BITHYNIA is bounded on the east by the Paphlagonians, Mariandyni, and by some tribes of the Epicteti; on the north by the line of the sea-coast of the Euxine, extending from the mouth of the Sangarius1 to the straits at Byzantium and Chalcedon; on the west by the Propontis; on the south by Mysia and Phrygia Epictetus, as it is called, which has the name also of Hellespontic Phrygia. [p. 315] 2. Here upon the mouth of the Pontus is situated Chal cedon, founded by the Megareans,2 the village Chrysopolis, and the Chalcedonian temple. In the country a little above the sea-coast is a fountain, Azaritia, (Azaretia?) which breeds small crocodiles.
(4) It is difficult to define the boundaries of the Bithynians, Mysians, Phrygians, of the Doliones about Cyzicus, and of the Mygdones and Troes; it is generally admitted that each of these tribes ought to be placed apart from the other. A proverbial saying is applied to the Phrygians and Mysians, `The boundaries of the Mysi and Phryges are apart from one another,' but it is difficult to define them respectively. The reason is this; strangers who came into the country were soldiers and barbarians; they had no fixed settlement in the country of which they obtained possession, but were, for the most part, wanderers, expelling others from their territory, and being expelled themselves. All these nations might be supposed to be Thracians, because Thracians occupy the country on the other side, and because they do not differ much from one another.
(5) But as far as we are able to conjecture, we may place Mysia between Bithynia and the mouth of the Æsepus, contiguous to the sea, and nearly along the whole of Olympus. Around it, in the interior, is the Epictetus, nowhere reaching the sea, and extending as far as the eastern parts of the Ascanian lake and district, for both bear the same name. Part of this territory was Phrygian, and part Mysian; the Phrygian was further distant from Troy; and so we must understand the words of the poet13 , when he says,
`Phorcys, and the god-like Ascanius, were the leaders of the Phryges far from Ascania,' that is, the Phrygian Ascania; for the other, the Mysian Ascania, was nearer to the present Nicæa, which he mentions, when he says, [p. 317] `Palmys, Ascanius, and Morys, sons of Hippotion, the leader of the Mysi, fighting in close combat, who came from the fertile soil of Ascania, as auxiliaries.'14 It is not then surprising that he should speak of an Ascanius, a leader of the Phrygians, who came from Ascania, and of an Ascanius, a leader of the Mysians, coming also from Ascania, for there is much repetition of names derived from rivers, lakes, and places.
(6) The poet himself assigns the Æsepus as the boundary of the Mysians, for after having described the country above Ilium, and lying along the foot of the mountains subject to Æneas, and which he calls Dardania, he places next towards the north Lycia, which was subject to Pandarus, and where Zeleia15 was situated; he says, `They who inhabited Zeleia, at the very foot of Ida, Aphneii Trojans, who drink of the dark stream of Æsepus;'16 below Zeleia, towards the sea, on this side of Æsepus, lies the plain of Adrasteia, and Tereia, Pitya, and in general the present district of Cyzicene near Priapus,17 which he afterwards describes. He then returns again to the parts towards the east, and to those lying above, by which he shows that he considered the country as far as the Æsepus the northern and eastern boundary of the Troad. Next to the Troad are Mysia and Olympus.18 Ancient tradition then suggests some such disposition of these nations.
But the present changes have produced many differences in consequence of' the continual succession of governors of the country, who confounded together people and districts, and separated others. The Phrygians and Mysians were masters of the country after the capture of Troy; afterwards the Lydians; then the Æolians and Ionians; next, the Persians and Macedonians; lastly, the Romans, under whose government most of the tribes have lost even their languages and names, in consequence of a new partition of the country having been made. It will be proper to take this into consideration when we describe its present state, at the same time showing a due regard to antiquity.
(7) In the inland parts of Bithynia is Bithynium,19 situated above Tieium,20 (Tilijos) and to which belongs the country about Salon, [p. 318] affording the best pasturage for cattle, whence comes the cheese of Salon. Nicsæa,21 the capital of Bithynia, is situated on the Ascanian lake. It is surrounded by a very large and very fertile plain, which in the summer is not very healthy. Its first founder was Antigonus, the son of Philip, who called it Antigonia. It was then rebuilt by Lysimachus, who changed its name to that of his wife Nicæa. She was the daughter of Antipater. The city is situated in a plain. Its shape is quadrangular, eleven stadia in circuit. It has four gates. Its streets are divided at right angles, so that the four gates may be seen from a single stone, set up in the middle of the Gymnasium. A little above the Ascanian lake is Otrcæa, a small town situated just on the borders of Bithynia towards the east. It is conjectured that Otrcæa was so called from Otreus.
(8) That Bithynia was a colony of the Mysians, first Scylax of Caryanda will testify, who says that Phrygians and Mysians dwell around the Ascanian lake. The next witness is Dionysius, who composed a work on `the foundation of cities.' He says that the straits at Chalcedon, and Byzantium, which are now called the Thracian, were formerly called the Mysian Bosporus. Some person might allege this as a proof that the Mysians were Thracians; and Euphorio says,
by the waters of the Mysian Ascanius;
and thus also Alexander the Ætolian, `who have their dwellings near the Ascanian waters, on the margin of the Ascanian lake, where Dolion dwelt, the son of Silenus and of Melia.' These authors testify the same thing, because the Ascanian lake is found in no other siuation but this.

Book XII, Chapter 5
The Tectosages occupy the parts towards the greater Phrygia near Pessinus,2 and the Orcaorci. They had the fortress Ancyra,3 of the same name as the small Phrygian city towards Lydia near Blaudus.4 The Tolistobogii border upon the Bithynians, and Phrygia Epictetus, as it is called. They possess the fortresses Blucium, (Luceium,) which was the royal seat of Deiotarus, and Peium, which was his treasure-hold.

(3) Pessinus is the largest mart of any in that quarter. It contains a temple of the Mother of the Gods, held in the highest veneration. The goddess is called Agdistis. The priests anciently were a sort of sovereigns, and derived a large revenue from their office. At present their consequence is much diminished, but the mart still subsists. The sacred enclosure was adorned with fitting magnificence by the Attalic kings,5 (The kings of Pergamum) with a temple, and porticos of marble. The Romans [p. 321] gave importance to the temple by sending for the statue of the goddess from thence according to the oracle of the Sibyl, as they had sent for that of Asclepius from Epidaurus. The mountain Dindymus is situated above the city; from Dindymus comes Dindymene, as from Cybela, Cybele. Near it runs the river Sangarius, and on its banks are the ancient dwellings of the Phrygians, of Midas, and of Gordius before his time, and of some others, which do not preserve the vestiges of cities, but are villages a little larger than the rest. Such is Gordium,6 and Gorbeus (Gordeus), the royal seat of Castor, son of Saocondarius, (Saocondarus?) in which he was put to death by his father-in-law, Deiotarus, who there also murdered his own daughter. Deiotarus razed the fortress, and destroyed the greater part of the settlement.
(4) Next to Galatia towards the south is the lake Tatta,7 (Tuz lake) lying parallel to that part of the Greater Cappadocia which is near the Morimeni. It belongs to the Greater Phrygia, as well as the country continuous with this, and extending as far as the Taurus, and of which Amyntas possessed the greatest part. Tatta is a natural salt-pan. The water so readily makes a deposit around everything immersed in it, that upon letting down wreaths formed of rope, chaplets of salt are drawn up. If birds touch the surface of the water with their wings, they immediately fall down in consequence of the concretion of the salt upon them, and are thus taken.

Book XII, Chapter 7
(4) For being in possession of Antiocheia near Pisidia, and the country as far as Apollonias,5 near Apameia Cibotus,6 some parts of the Paroreia, and Lycaonia, he attempted to exterminate the Cilicians and Pisidians, who descended from the Taurus and overran this district, which belonged to the Phrygians and Cilicians (Lycaonians). He razed also many [p. 323] fortresses, which before this time were considered impregna ble, among which was Cremna, but he did not attempt to take by storm Sandalium, situated between Cremna and Sagalassus.

Book XII, Chapter 8
THE people called Mysians, and Phrygians, who live around the so-called Mysian Olympus, border upon the Bithynians to the south. Each of these nations is divided into two parts. One is called the Greater Phrygia, of which Midas was king. A part of it was occupied by the Galatians. The other is the Lesser, or Phrygia on the Hellespont, or Phrygia around Olympus, and is also called Epictetus. Mysia is also divided into two parts; Olympic Mysia, which is continuous with Bithynia, and with the Epictetus, (which, Artemidorus says, was inhabited by the Mysians beyond the Danube,) and the part around the Caïcus,1 and the Pergamene2 as far as Teuthrania, and the mouths of the river.
2) This country, however, as we have frequently observed, has undergone so many changes, that it is uncertain whether the district around Sipylus,3 which the ancients called Phrygia, were a part of the Greater or the Lesser Phrygia, from whence Tantalus, Pelops, and Niobe were called Phrygians. Whatever the explanation may be, the change is certain. For Pergamene and Elaitis,4 through which country the Caïcus passes, and empties itself into the sea, and Teuthrania, situated between these two districts, where Teuthras lived, and Telephus was brought up, lies between the Hellespont, and the country about Sipylus, and Magnesia, which is at the foot of the mountain, so that, as I have said, it is difficult
To assign the confines of the Mysians and Phryges.--
(3) The Lydians also, and the Mæones, whom Homer calls Meones, are in some way confounded with these people and with one another; some authors say that they are the same, others that they are different, nations. Add to this that some writers regard the Mysians as Thracians, others as Lydians, according to an ancient tradition, which has been preserved by Xanthus the Lydian, and by Menecrates of Elæa, who assign as the origin of the name Mysians, that the Lydians call the beech-tree (Oxya) Mysos, which grows in great abundance near Olympus, where it is said decimated persons5 were exposed, whose descendants are the [p. 327] later Mysians, and received their appellation from the Mysos, or beech-tree growing in that country. The language also is an evidence of this. It is a mixture of Lydian and Phrygian words, for they lived some time in the neighbourhood of Olympus. But when the Phrygians passed over from Thrace, and put to death the chief of Troy and of the country near it, they settled here, but the Mysians established themselves above the sources of the Caïcus near Lydia.
4...The accounts respecting the Phrygians and the Mysians are more ancient than the Trojan times. Two tribes bearing the name of Lycians, lead us to suppose that they are the same race; either the Trojan Lycians sent colonies to the Carians, or the Carian Lycians to the Trojans. Perhaps the same may be the case with the Cilicians, for they also are divided into two tribes; but we have not the same evidence that the present Cilicians existed before the Trojan times. Telephus may be supposed to have come with his mother from Arcadia; by her marriage with Teuthras, (who had received them as his guests,) Telephus was admitted into the [p. 328] family of Teuthras, was reputed to be his son, and succeeded to the kingdom of the Mysians.
(5) `The Carians, who were formerly islanders, and Leleges,' it is said, `settled on the continent with the assistance of the Cretans. They built Miletus, of which the founder was Sarpedon from Miletus in Crete. They settled the colony of Termilmæ in the present Lycia, but, according to Herodotus,6 these people were a colony from Crete under the conduct of Sarpedon, brother of Minos and Rhadamanthus, who gave the name of Termilæ to the people formerly called Milyæ, and still more anciently Solymi; when, however, Lycus the son of Pandion arrived, he called them Lycii after his own name.' This account shows that the Solymi and Lycians were the same people, but the poet distinguishes them. He represents Bellerophon setting out from Lycia, and
fighting with the renowned Solymi.7
(6) That the common prize, proposed to be obtained by the conquerors, was the fertile country which I am describing, is confirmed by many circumstances which happened both before and after the Trojan times. When even the Amazons ventured to invade it, Priam and Bellerophon are said to have undertaken an expedition against these women. Anciently there were cities which bore the names of the Amazons. In the Ilian plain there is a hill `which men call Batieia, but the immortals, the tomb of the bounding (poluskaethmoio) Myrina,' who, according to historians, was one of the Amazons, and they found this conjecture on the epithet, for horses are said to be euskarthmoi on account of their speed; and she was called poluskarmos from the rapidity with which she drove the chariot. Myrina therefore, the place, was named after the Amazon. In the same manner the neighbouring islands were invaded on account of their fertility; among which were Rhodes and Cos. That they were inhabited before the Trojan times clearly appears from the testimony of Homer.10 [p. 329]

(7) After the Trojan times, the migrations of Greeks and of Treres, the inroads of Cimmerians and Lydians, afterwards of Persians and Macedonians, and lastly of Galatians, threw everything into confusion. An obscurity arose not from these changes only, but from the disagreement between authors in their narration of the same events, and in their description of the same persons; for they called Trojans Phrygians, like the Tragic poets; and Lycians Carians, and similarly in other instances. The Trojans who, from a small beginning, increased so much in power that they became kings of kings, furnished a motive to the poet and his interpreters, for determining what country ought to be called Troy. For the poet calls by the common name of Trojans all their auxiliaries, as he calls their enemies Danai and Achæi. But certainly we should not give the name of Troy to Paphlagonia, or to Caria, or to Lycia, which borders upon it. I mean when the poet says,
the Trojans advanced with the clashing of armour and shouts,11
Il. iii.
and where he speaks of their enemies,
but the Achæi advanced silently, breathing forth warlike ardour,12
Il. iii. 8.
and thus frequently in other passages.
We must endeavour, however, to distinguish as far as we are able one nation from another, notwithstanding this uncertainty. If anything relative to ancient history escapes my notice, it must be pardoned, for this is not the province of the geographer; my concern is with the present state of people and places.

(8) There are two mountains situated above the Propontis, the Mysian Olympus13 and Ida.14 At the foot of Olympus is Bithynia, and, contiguous to the mountain, between Ida and the sea, is Troy. We shall afterwards speak of Troy, and of the places continuous with it on the south. At present we shall give an account of the places about Olympus, and of the adjoining country as far as the Taurus, and parallel to the parts which we have previously described.

The country lying around Olympus is not well inhabited. On its heights are immense forests and strongholds, well adapt- [p. 330] ed for the protection of robbers, who, being able to maintain themselves there for any length of time, often set themselves up as tyrants, as Cleon a captain of a band of robbers did in my recollection.
(9) Cleon was a native of the village Gordium, which he afterwards enlarged, and erected into a city, giving it the name of Juliopolis. His first retreat and head-quarters was a place called Callydium, one of the strongest holds. He was of service to Antony in attacking the soldiers who collected money for Labienus, at the time that the latter occupied Asia, and thus hindered the preparations which he was making for his defence. In the Actian war he separated himself from Antony and attached himself to the generals of Cæsar; he was rewarded above his deserts, for in addition to what he received from Antony he obtained power from Cæsar, and exchanged the character of a freebooter for that of a petty prince. He was priest of Jupiter Abrettenus, the Mysian god, and a portion of the Morena was subject to him, which, like Abrettena, is Mysian. He finally obtained the priesthood of Comana in Pontus, and went to take possession of it, but died within a month after his arrival. He was carried off by an acute disease, occasioned either by excessive repletion, or, according to the account of those employed about the temple, inflicted by the anger of the goddess. The story is this. Within the circuit of the sacred enclosure is the dwelling of the priest and priestess. Besides other sacred observances relative to the temple, the purity of this enclosure is an especial object of vigilance, by abstinence from eating swine's flesh. The whole city, indeed, is bound to abstain from this food, and swine are not permitted to enter it. Cleon, however, immediately upon his arrival displayed his lawless disposition and character by violating this custom, as if he had come there not as a priest, but a polluter of sacred things.
(10) The description of Olympus is as follows. Around it, to the north, live Bithynians, Mygdonians, and Doliones; the rest is occupied by Mysians and Epicteti. The tribes about Cyzicus15 from Æsepus16 as far as Rhyndacus17 and the lake Dascylitis,18 are called for the most part Doliones; those next to the Doliones, and extending as far as the territory of the Myrleani,19 are called Mygdones. Above the [p. 331] Dascylitis are two large lakes, the Apolloniatis,20 and the Miletopolitis.21 Near the Dascylitis is the city Dascylium, and on the Miletopolitis, Miletopolis. Near a third lake is Apollonia on the Rhyndacus, as it is called. Most of these places belong at present to the Cyziceni.
(12) To Phrygian Epictetus belong the Azani, and the cities Nacoleia, Cotiæium, 28(Kutahya) Midiæium, Dorylæum, 29(Eskisher) and Cadi. 30(Gediz) Some persons assign Cadi to Mysia. [Note: Kutahya, Midiaeium and Eskisher are listed geographically together, where Midiaeium appears to be the site now called Midas City]
Mysia extends in the inland parts from Olympene to Pergamene, and to the plain of Caïcus, as it is called; so that it lies between Ida and the Catacecaumene, which some place in Mysia, others in Mæonia.
(13) Beyond the Epictetus to the south is the Greater Phrygia, leaving on the left Pessinus, and the parts about Orcaorci, and Lycaonia, and on the right Mæones, Lydians, and Carians. In the Epictetus are Phrygia Paroreia, and the country towards Pisidia, and the parts about Amorium,31 Eumeneia,32 and Synnada.33(Afium-Karahissar) Next are Apameia Cibotus,34(Dinar) and Laodiceia,35 the largest cities in Phrygia. Around them lie the towns [and places], Aphrodisias,36 Colossæ,37 Themisonium,38 Sanaus, Metropolis,39 Apollonias, and farther off than these, Pelte, Tabeæ, Eucarpia, and Lysias.

(14) The Paroreia40 has a mountainous ridge extending from east to west. Below it on either side stretches a large plain, [p. 333] cities are situated near the ridge, on the north side, Philome lium,41 on the south Antiocheia, surnamed Near Pisidia.42 The former lies entirely in the plain, the other is on a hill, and occupied by a Roman colony. This was founded by the Magnetes, who live near the Mæander. The Romans liberated them from the dominion of the kings, when they delivered up the rest of Asia within the Taurus to Eumenes. In this place was established a priesthood of Men Arcæus, having attached to it a multitude of sacred attendants, and tracts of sacred territory. It was abolished after the death of Amyntas by those who were sent to settle the succession to his kingdom.
Synnada is not a large city. In front of it is a plain planted with olives, about 60 stadia in extent. Beyond is Docimia, a village, and the quarry of the Synnadic marble. This is the name given to it by the Romans, but the people of the country call it Docimite and Docimæan. At first the quarry produced small masses, but at present, through the extravagance of the Romans, pillars are obtained, consisting of a single stone and of great size, approaching the alabastrite marble in variety of colours; although the distant carriage of such heavy loads to the sea is difficult, yet both pillars and slabs of surprising magnitude and beauty are conveyed to Rome.

(15) Apameia is a large mart of Asia, properly so called, and second in rank to Ephesus, for it is the common staple for merchandise brought from Italy and from Greece. It is built upon the mouth of the river Marsyas, which runs through the middle of it, and has its commencement above the city; being carried down to the suburb with a strong and precipitous current, it enters the Mæander,43 which receives also another river, the Orgas, and traverses a level tract with a gentle and unruffled stream. Here the Meander becomes a large river, and flows for some time through Phrygia; it then separates Caria and Lydia at the plain, as it is called, of the Meander, running in a direction excessively tortuous, so that from the course of this river all windings are called Mæanders. Towards its termination it runs through the part of Caria occupied by the Ionians; the mouths by which it empties itself are between Miletus and Priene.44 It rises in a hill called Celæmæ, on which was a city of the same name. Antiochus [p. 334] Soter transferred the inhabitants to the present Apameia, and called the city after his mother Apama, who was the daughter of Artabazus. She was given in marriage to Seleucus Nicator. Here is laid the scene of the fable of Olympus and Marsyas, and of the contest between Marsyas and Apollo. Above is situated a lake45 on which grows a reed, which is suited to the mouth-pieces of pipes. From this lake, it is said, spring the Marsyas and the Mæander.
(17) Carura47 is the boundary of Phrygia and Caria. It is [p. 335] a village, where there are inns for the reception of travellers, and springs of boiling water, some of which rise in the river Mæander, and others on its banks. There is a story, that a pimp had lodgings in the inns for a great company of women, and that during the night he and all the women were overwhelmed by an earthquake and disappeared. Nearly the whole of the country about the Mæander, as far as the inland parts, is subject to earthquakes, and is undermined by fire and water. For all this cavernous condition of the country, beginning from the plains, extends to the Charonia; it exists likewise in Hierapolis, and in Acharaca in the district Nysæis, also in the plain of Magnesia, and in Myus. The soil is dry and easily reduced to powder, full of salts, and very inflammable. This perhaps is the reason why the course of the Mæander is winding, for the stream is diverted in many places from its direction, and brings down a great quantity of alluvial soil, some part of which it deposits in various places along the shore, and forcing the rest forwards occasions it to drift into the open sea. It has made, for example, Priene, which was formerly upon the sea, an inland city, by the deposition of banks of alluvial earth along an extent of 40 stadia.
(18) Phrygia Catacecaumene, (or the Burnt,) which is occupied by Lydians and Mysians, obtained this name from something of the following kind. In Philadelphia,48 (Alasehir) a city adjoining to it, even the walls of the houses are not safe, for nearly every day they are shaken, and crevices appear. The inhabitants are constantly attentive to these accidents to which the ground is subject, and build with a view to their occurrence.
Apameia among other cities experienced, before the invasion of Mithridates, frequent earthquakes, and the king, on his arrival, when he saw the overthrow of the city, gave a hundred talents for its restoration. It is said that the same thing happened in the time of Alexander; for this reason it is probable that Neptune is worshipped there, although they are an inland people, and that it had the name of Celænæ from Celva- nus,49 the son of Neptune, by Celæno, one of the Danaides, or from the black colour of the stones, or from the blackness which is the effect of combustion. What is related of Sipylus and its overthrow is not to be regarded as a fable. For earthquakes overthrew the present Magnesia, which is situated [p. 336] below that mountain, at the time that Sardis and other cele brated cities in various parts sustained great injury.50 The emperor51 gave a sum of money for their restoration, as formerly his father had assisted the Tralliani on the occurrence of a similar calamity, when the gymnasium and other parts of the city were destroyed; in the same manner he had assisted also the Laodiceans.

(20) Between Laodiceia and Carura (Denizili) is a temple of Mén Carus, which is held in great veneration. In our time there was a large Herophilian53 school of medicine under the direction of Zeuxis,54 and afterwards of Alexander Philalethes, as in the time of our ancestors there was, at Smyrna, a school of [p. 337] the disciples of Erasistratus under the conduct of Hicesius, At present there is nothing of this kind.
(21) The names of some Phrygian tribes, as the Berecyntes [and Cerbesii], are mentioned, which no longer exist. And Aleman says,
He played the Cerbesian, a Phrygian air.
They speak also of a Cerbesian pit which sends forth destructive exhalations; this however exists, but the people have no longer the name of Cerbesii. Æschylus in his Niobe55 confounds them; Niobe says that she shall remember Tantalus, and his story;
those who have an altar of Jupiter, their paternal god, on the Idæan hill,
and again;
Sipylus in the Idæan land,
--and Tantalus says, `I sow the furrows of the Berecynthian fields, extending twelve days' journey, where the seat of Adrasteia and Ida resound with the lowing of herds and the bleating of sheep; all the plain re-echoes with their cries.' [p. 338]

Book XIII, Chapter 1
THESE are the limits of Phrygia. We return again to the Propontis, and to the sea-coast adjoining the Æsepus,1 and shall observe, in our description of places, the same order as before.
The first country which presents itself on the sea-coast is the Troad.2 (Note: The Troad is called Biga by the Turks, from the name of a town which now commands that district. Biga is the ancient Sidene.) Although it is deserted, and covered with ruins, yet it is so celebrated as to furnish a writer with no ordinary excuse for expatiating on its history....
(2) The coast of the Propontis extends from Cyzicene and the places about the Æsepus and Granicus3 as far as Abydos, [p. 339] and Sestos.4 Between Abydos and Lectum5 is the country about Ilium, and Tenedos and Alexandreia Troas.6 Above all these is the mountain Ida, extending as far as Lectum. From Lectum to the river Caïcus7 and the Canæ mountains as they are called is the district comprising Assus,8 Adramyttium,9 Atarneus,10 Pitane,11 and the Elaïtic bay, opposite to all which places lies the island Lesbos.12 Next follows the country about Cyme13 as far as Hermus,14 and Phocæa,15 where Ionia begins, and Æolis terminates. Such then is the nature of the country.
The poet implies that it was the Trojans chiefly who were divided into eight or even nine bodies of people, each forming a petty princedom, who had under their sway the places about Æsepus, and those about the territory of the present Cyzicene, as far as the river Caïcus. The troops of auxiliaries are reckoned among the allies.
(3) The writers subsequent to Homer do not assign the same boundaries

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