Description of Greece

There is at Marathon a lake which for the most part is marshy. Into this ignorance of the roads made the foreigners fall in their flight, and it is said that this accident was the cause of their great losses. Above the lake are the stone stables of Artaphernes' horses, and marks of his tent on the rocks. Out of the lake flows a river, affording near the lake itself water suitable for cattle, but near its mouth it becomes salt and full of sea fish. A little beyond the plain is the Hill of Pan and a remarkable Cave of Pan. The entrance to it is narrow, but farther in are chambers and baths and the so-called “Pan's herd of goats,” which are rocks shaped in most respects like to goats.

At some distance from Marathon is Brauron, where, according to the legend, Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, landed with the image of Artemis when she fled from the Tauri; leaving the image there she came to Athens also and afterwards to Argos. There is indeed an old wooden image of Artemis here, but who in my opinion have the one taken from the foreigners I will set forth in another place.

About sixty stades from Marathon as you go along the road by the sea to Oropus stands Rhamnus. The dwelling houses are on the coast, but a little way inland is a sanctuary of Nemesis, the most implacable deity to men of violence. It is thought that the wrath of this goddess fell also upon the foreigners who landed at Marathon. For thinking in their pride that nothing stood in the way of their taking Athens, they were bringing a piece of Parian marble to make a trophy, convinced that their task was already finished.

Of this marble Pheidias made a statue of Nemesis, and on the head of the goddess is a crown with deer and small images of Victory. In her left hand she holds an apple branch, in her right hand a cup on which are wrought Aethiopians. As to the Aethiopians, I could hazard no guess myself, nor could I accept the statement of those who are convinced that the Aethiopians have been carved upon the cup be cause of the river Ocean. For the Aethiopians, they say, dwell near it, and Ocean is the father of Nemesis.

It is not the river Ocean, but the farthest part of the sea navigated by man, near which dwell the Iberians and the Celts, and Ocean surrounds the island of Britain. But of the Aethiopians beyond Syene, those who live farthest in the direction of the Red Sea are the Ichthyophagi (Fish-eaters), and the gulf round which they live is called after them. The most righteous of them inhabit the city Meroe and what is called the Aethiopian plain. These are they who show the Table of the Sun,[*](A meadow near the city of the Aethiopians, in which they dined.) and they have neither sea nor river except the Nile.

There are other Aethiopians who are neighbours of the Mauri and extend as far as the Nasamones. For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus calls the Atlantes, and those who profess to know the measurements of the earth name the Lixitae, are the Libyans who live the farthest close to Mount Atlas, and they do not till the ground at all, but live on wild vines. But neither these Aethiopians nor yet the Nasamones have any river. For the water near Atlas, which provides a beginning to three streams, does not make any of the streams a river, as the sand swallows it all up at once. So the Aethiopians dwell near no river Ocean.

The water from Atlas is muddy,and near the source were crocodiles of not less than two cubits, which when the men approached dashed down into the spring. The thought has occurred to many that it is the reappearance of this water out of the sand which gives the Nile to Egypt. Mount Atlas is so high that its peaks are said to touch heaven, but is inaccessible because of the water and the presence everywhere of trees. Its region indeed near the Nasamones is known, but we know of nobody yet who has sailed along the parts facing the sea. I must now resume.

Neither this nor any other ancient statue of Nemesis has wings, for not even the holiest wooden images of the Smyrnaeans have them, but later artists, convinced that the goddess manifests herself most as a consequence of love, give wings to Nemesis as they do to Love. I will now go onto describe what is figured on the pedestal of the statue, having made this preface for the sake of clearness. The Greeks say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, while Leda suckled and nursed her. The father of Helen the Greeks like everybody else hold to be not Tyndareus but Zeus.

Having heard this legend Pheidias has represented Helen as being led to Nemesis by Leda, and he has represented Tyndareus and his children with a man Hippeus by name standing by with a horse. There are Agamemnon and Menelaus and Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and first husband of Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Orestes was passed over because of his crime against his mother, yet Hermione stayed by his side in everything and bore him a child. Next upon the pedestal is one called Epochus and another youth; the only thing I heard about them was that they were brothers of Oenoe, from whom the parish has its name.

The land of Oropus, between Attica and the land of Tanagra, which originally belonged to Boeotia, in our time belongs to the Athenians, who always fought for it but never won secure pos session until Philip gave it to them after taking Thebes. The city is on the coast and affords nothing remarkable to record. About twelve stades from the city is a sanctuary of Amphiaraus.

Legend says that when Amphiaraus was exiled from Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot. Only they say that the incident did not happen here, the place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes to Chalcis. The divinity of Amphiaraus was first established among the Oropians, from whom afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them, such as Eleus in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaus, and Lebadea of the Boeotians dedicated to Trophonius. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue of Amphiaraus.

The altar shows parts. One part is to Heracles, Zeus, and Apollo Healer, another is given up to heroes and to wives of heroes, the third is to Hestia and Hermes and Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus. But Alcmaeon, because of his treatment of Eriphyle, is honored neither in the temple of Amphiaraus nor yet with Amphilochus. The fourth portion of the altar is to Aphrodite and Panacea, and further to Iaso, Health and Athena Healer. The fifth is dedicated to the nymphs and to Pan, and to the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. The Athenians too have an altar to Amphilochus in the city, and there is at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle of his which is the most trustworthy of my day.

The Oropians have near the temple a spring, which they call the Spring of Amphiaraus; they neither sacrifice into it nor are wont to use it for purifications or for lustral water. But when a man has been cured of a disease through a response the custom is to throw silver and coined gold into the spring, for by this way they say that Amphiaraus rose up after he had become a god. Iophon the Cnossian, a guide, produced responses in hexameter verse, saying that Amphiaraus gave them to the Argives who were sent against Thebes. These verses unrestrainedly appealed to popular taste. Except those whom they say Apollo inspired of old none of the seers uttered oracles, but they were good at explaining dreams and interpreting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims.

My opinion is that Amphiaraus devoted him self most to the exposition of dreams. It is manifest that, when his divinity was established, it was a dream oracle that he set up. One who has come to consult Amphiaraus is wont first to purify himself. The mode of purification is to sacrifice to the god, and they sacrifice not only to him but also to all those whose names are on the altar. And when all these things have been first done, they sacrifice a ram, and, spreading the skin under them, go to sleep and await enlightenment in a dream.

There are islands not far from Attica. Of the one called the Island of Patroclus I have already given an account.[*](See Paus. 1.1.1.) There is another when you have sailed past Sunium with Attica on the left. On this they say that Helen landed after the capture of Troy,

and for this reason the name of the island is Helene. Salamis lies over against Eleusis, and stretches as far as the territory of Megara. It is said that the first to give this name to the island was Cychreus, who called it after his mother Salamis, the daughter of Asopus, and afterwards it was colonized by the Aeginetans with Telamon. Philaeus, the son of Eurysaces, the son of Ajax, is said to have handed the island over to the Athenians, having been made an Athenian by them. Many years afterwards the Athenians drove out all the Salaminians, having discovered that they had been guilty of treachery in the war with Cassander[*](318 B.C.), and mainly of set purpose had surrendered to the Macedonians. They sentenced to death Aeschetades, who on this occasion had been elected general for Salamis, and they swore never to forget the treachery of the Salaminians.