Description of Greece

Such was the beginning of Pindar's career as a lyric poet. When his reputation had already spread throughout Greece he was raised to a greater height of fame by an order of the Pythian priestess, who bade the Delphians give to Pindar one half of all the first-fruits they offered to Apollo. It is also said that on reaching old age a vision came to him in a dream. As he slept Persephone stood by him and declared that she alone of the deities had not been honored by Pindar with a hymn, but that Pindar would compose an ode to her also when he had come to her.

Pindar died at once, before ten days had passed since the dream. But there was in Thebes an old woman related by birth to Pindar who had practised singing most of his odes. By her side in a dream stood Pindar, and sang a hymn to Persephone. Immediately on waking out of her sleep she wrote down all she had heard him singing in her dream. In this song, among the epithets he applies to Hades is “golden-reined”—a clear reference to the rape of Persephone.

From this point to Acraephnium is mainly flat. They say that originally the city formed part of the territory belonging to Thebes, and I learned that in later times men of Thebes escaped to it, at the time when Alexander destroyed Thebes. Weak and old, they could not even get safely away to Attica, but made their homes here. The town lies on Mount Ptous, and there are here a temple and image of Dionysus that are worth seeing.

About fifteen stades away from the city on the right is the sanctuary of Ptoan Apollo. We are told by Asius in his epic that Ptous, who gave a surname to Apollo and the name to the mountain, was a son of Athamas by Themisto. Before the expedition of the Macedonians under Alexander, in which Thebes was destroyed, there was here an oracle that never lied. Once too a mail of Europus, of the name of Mys, who was sent by Mardonius, inquired of the god in his own language, and the god too gave a response, not in Greek but in the Carian speech.

On crossing Mount Ptous you come to Larymna, a Boeotian city on the coast, said to have been named after Larymna, the daughter of Cynus. Her earlier ancestors I shall give in my account of Locris.[*](See Paus. 10.38.1.) Of old Larymna belonged to Opus, but when Thebes rose to great power the citizens of their own accord joined the Boeotians. Here there is a temple of Dionysus with a standing image. The town has a harbor with deep water near the shore, and on the mountains commanding the city wild boars can be hunted.

On the straight road from Acraephnium to the Cephisian, or as it is also called, the Copaic Lake, is what is styled the Athamantian Plain, on which, they say, Athamas made his home. Into the lake flows the river Cephisus, which rises at Lilaea in Phocis, and on sailing across it you come to Copae, a town lying on the shore of the lake. Homer[*](Hom. Il. 2.502) mentions it in the Catalogue. Here is a sanctuary of Demeter, one of Dionysus and a third of Serapis.

According to the Boeotians there were once other inhabited towns near the lake, Athens and Eleusis, but there occurred a flood one winter which destroyed them. The fish of the Cephisian Lake are in general no different from those of other lakes, but the eels there are of great size and very pleasant to the palate.

On the left of Copae about twelve stades from it is Olmones, and some seven stades distant from Olmones is Hyettus both right from their foundation to the present day have been villages. In my view Hyettus, as well as the Athamantian plain, belongs to the district of Orchomenus. All the stories I heard about Hyettus the Argive and Olmus, the son of Sisyphus, I shall include in my history of Orchomenus.[*](Paus. 9.34.10 and Paus. 9.36.6.) In Olmones they did not show me anything that was in the least worth seeing, but in Hyettus is a temple of Heracles, from whom the sick may get cures. There is an image not carefully carved, but of unwrought stone after the ancient fashion.

About twenty stades away from Hyettus is Cyrtones. The ancient name of the town was, they say, Cyrtone. It is built on a high mountain, and here are a temple and grove of Apollo. There are also standing images of Apollo and Artemis. There is here too a cool stream of water rising from a rock. By the spring is a sanctuary of the nymphs, and a small grove, in which all the trees alike are cultivated.

Going out of Cyrtones, as you cross the mountain you come to Corseia, under which is a grove of trees that are not cultivated, being mostly evergreen oaks. A small image of Hermes stands in the open part of the grove. This is distant from Corseia about half a stade. On descending to the level you reach a river called the Platanius, which flows into the sea. On the right of the river the last of the Boeotians in this part dwell in Halae-on-Sea, which separates the Locrian mainland from Euboea.