Description of Greece

He ordered them first to sacrifice to Apollo in that spot in Attica where they should see a man-of-war running on the land. When they reached the mountain called the Many-colored Mountain a snake was seen hurrying into its hole. In this place they sacrificed to Apollo; afterwards they came to Athens and the Athenians made them citizens. After this is a temple of Aphrodite, before which is a note worthy wall of unwrought stone.

The streams called Rheiti are rivers only in so far as they are currents, for their water is sea water. It is a reasonable belief that they flow beneath the ground from the Euripus of the Chalcidians, and fall into a sea of a lower level. They are said to be sacred to the Maid and to Demeter, and only the priests of these goddesses are permitted to catch the fish in them. Anciently, I learn, these streams were the boundaries between the land of the Eleusinians and that of the other Athenians,

and the first to dwell on the other side of the Rheiti was Crocon, where at the present day is what is called the palace of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Saesara, daughter of Celeus. Not all of them say this, but only those who belong to the parish of Scambonidae. I could not find the grave of Crocon, but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in identifying the tomb of Eumolpus. This Eumolpus they say came from Thrace, being the son of Poseidon and Chione. Chione they say was the daughter of the wind Boreas and of Oreithyia. Homer says nothing about the family of Eumolpus, but in his poems styles him “manly.”

When the Eleusinians fought with the Athenians, Erechtheus, king of the Athenians, was killed, as was also Immaradus, son of Eumolpus. These were the terms on which they concluded the war: the Eleusinians were to have in dependent control of the mysteries, but in all things else were to be subject to the Athenians. The ministers of the Two Goddesses were Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus, whom Pamphos and Homer agree in naming Diogenia, Pammerope, and the third Saesara. Eumolpus was survived by Ceryx, the younger of his sons whom the Ceryces themselves say was a son of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, and of Hermes, not of Eumolpus.

There is also a shrine of the hero Hippothoon, after whom the tribe is named, and hard by one of Zarex. The latter they say learned music from Apollo, but my opinion is that he was a Lacedaemonian who came as a stranger to the land, and that after him is named Zarax, a town in the Laconian territory near the sea. If there is a native Athenian hero called Zarex, I have nothing to say concerning him.

At Eleusis flows a Cephisus which is more violent than the Cephisus I mentioned above, and by the side of it is the place they call Erineus, saying that Pluto descended there to the lower world after carrying off the Maid. Near this Cephisus Theseus killed a brigand named Polypemon and surnamed Procrustes.