Demosthenes

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VII. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1919.

Now, the Thermodon, they say, is in my native territory, in Chaeroneia, being a little river which empties into the Cephisus. But I know of no river bearing this name at the present time; I conjecture, however, that the stream now called Haemon then bore the name of Thermodon. For it flows past the Heracleum, where the Greeks had their camp; and I judge that after the battle the river was filled with blood and corpses and therefore received its present name in exchange[*](Deriving*ai(/mwn fromai(=ma (blood).)

Duris, however, says that this Thermodon was not a river, but that some soldiers who were pitching a tent and digging a trench about it, found a small stone figure, an inscription upon which signified that it was Thermodon,[*](i.e. the god of the river Thermodon, in Cappadocia, on the banks of which the Amazons were thought to dwell. Cf. the Theseus, xxvii. 6.) carrying in its arms a wounded Amazon. They say also that in reference to this another oracle is recited as follows:—

  1. For the battle on Thermodon wait thou, all-black bird;
  2. There thou shalt have in abundance the flesh of men.