Histories

But those near the Pangaean[*](East of the Strymon.) mountains and the country of the Doberes and the Agrianes and the Odomanti and the Prasiad lake itself were never subdued at all by Megabazus. He did in fact try to take the lake-dwellers[*](Dwellings of a similar kind have been found in North Italy [12.833,42.833] (nation), Europe Italy, +Ireland (island), British Isles, Europe Ireland, and other parts of Western Europe (continent)Europe.) and did so in the following manner. There is set in the midst of the lake a platform made fast on tall piles, to which one bridge gives a narrow passage from the land.

In olden times all the people working together set the piles which support the platform there, but they later developed another method of setting them. The men bring the piles from a mountain called Orbelus,[*](Between the Strymon and the Nestus.) and every man plants three for each of the three women that he weds.

Each man has both a hut on the platform and a trap-door in the platform leading down into the lake. They make a cord fast to the feet of their little children out of fear that they will fall into the water.

They give fish as fodder to their horses and beasts of burden, and there is such an abundance of fish that a man can open his trap-door, let down an empty basket by a line into the lake, and draw it up after a short time full of fish. There are two kinds of these, some called “paprakes,” some “tilones.”