Aratus

In the midst of this confusion, one of the captive women, daughter of Epigethes, a man of distinction, and herself conspicuous for beauty and stateliness of person, chanced to be sitting in the sanctuary of Artemis, where she had been placed by the captain of a picked corps, who had seized her for his prize and set his three-crested helmet upon her head. But suddenly she ran forth to view the tumult,

and as she stood in front of the gate of the sanctuary and looked down upon the combatants from on high, with the three-crested helmet on her head, she seemed to the citizens themselves a vision of more than human majesty, while the enemy thought they saw an apparition from heaven and were struck with amazement and terror, so that not a man of them thought of defending himself. But the Pellenians themselves tell us that the image of the goddess usually stands untouched, and that when it is removed by the priestess and carried forth from the temple, no man looks upon it, but all turn their gaze away; for not only to mankind is it a grievous and terrible sight, but trees also, past which it may be carried, become barren and cast their fruit.

This image, then, they say, the priestess carried forth from the temple at this time, and by ever turning it in the faces of the Aetolians robbed them of their senses and took away their reason. Aratus, however, in his Commentaries, makes no mention of such a thing, but says that after routing the Aetolians and bursting into the city with them as they fled, he drove them out by main force, and slew seven hundred of them. The action was extolled as among the greatest exploits, and Timanthes the painter made a picture of the battle which in its composition vividly portrayed the event.