Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER VII.

And when you have got to Olympia immediately you see the river Alpheus, a full and very pleasant river, and no less than seven notable rivers are tributaries to it. For through Megalopolis the Helisson flows into it, and the Brentheates from the district of Megalopolis, and the Gortynius near Gortyna where is a temple of Æsculapius, and from Melæneæ between the districts of Megalopolis and Heræa the Buphagus, and the Ladon from the district of the Clitorians, and the river Erymanthus from the mountain of the same name. All these flow into the Alpheus from Arcadia, and the Cladeus from Elis also contributes its stream. And the source of the Alpheus is in Arcadia and not in Elis. And there are several traditions about the Alpheus, as that he was a hunter and enamoured of Arethusa, and that she hunted with him. And as Arethusa was unwilling to marry him, she crossed over they say to an island near Syracuse, called Ortygia, and there became a spring: just as Alpheus in consequence of his love was changed into a river. This is the tradition about the Alpheus and the Ortygia. As to the river going under the sea and coming up in another place, there is no reason why I should discredit that, as I know that the god at Delphi admitted it, seeing that when he sent Archias the Corinthian to establish a colony at Syracuse, these were some of the words he used, “Ortygia lies in the cloudy sea above Trinacria, where the mouth of the Alpheus mixes and flows with the springs of the broad Arethusa.” From this circumstance of their union, and not any love passages, I imagine the traditions about the two rivers originated. And all the Greeks or Egyptians, that have penetrated into Ethiopia beyond Syene, and as far as the Ethiopian city of Meroe, say that the Nile enters into a marsh, and flows through it as if it were earth, and eventually through lower Ethiopia into Egypt to Pharos, where it has its outlet at the sea. And in the land of the Hebrews I know that the river Jordan flows through the lake of Tiberias, and into what is called the Dead Sea, by which it is absorbed. The Dead Sea has properties unlike any other water: living bodies can float in it without swimming, whereas dead bodies go to the bottom. And it has no fish, for from their evident danger they take refuge in water more congenial to them. And there is a river in Ionia similar to the Alpheus, its source is in the mountain Mycale, and it flows under the sea, and comes up again at Branchidæ at the harbour called Panormus. All this is correctly stated.

In regard to the Olympian Games those who are in possession of the most ancient archives of the people of Elis say that Cronos was the first king of Heaven, and that he had a temple built to him at Olympia by the mortals who then lived, who were called the golden age: and that, when Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the charge of the boy to the Idæan Dactyli, who were otherwise called the Curetes: who afterwards came to Elis from Ida in Crete, and their names were Hercules, and Epimedes, and Pæonæus, and Iasius, and Idas. And Hercules the eldest of them challenged his brothers in play to run a race together, and they would crown the victor with a branch of the wild olive: and there was such abundance of wild olive trees that they strewed under them the leaves while they were still green as beds to sleep on. And they say that the wild olive was introduced to the Greeks by Hercules from the country of the Hyperboreans, who dwelt north of the wind Boreas. Olen the Lycian first mentioned in a hymn to Achæia, that she came to Delos from these Hyperboreans, and when Melanopus of Cumæ composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerges, he mentioned that they too came from the Hyperboreans to Delos before Achæia. And Aristæus of Proconnesus, who has also mentioned the Hyperboreans, may perhaps have heard more of them from the Issedones, to whom in his poems he says they went. At any rate to Idæan Hercules belongs the glory that he first instituted and gave their name to the Olympian contests. He appointed them to be held every fifth year because he and his brothers were five in number. And some say that it was there that Zeus contended with Cronos about the sovereignty of Heaven, others say he appointed these games after his success over Cronos. Other gods are said to have been victorious, as Apollo who outran Hermes, who challenged him to the contest, and outboxed Ares. And this is the reason they say why the Pythian flute-playing was introduced in the leaping contest at the pentathlum, because the flute was sacred to Apollo, and Apollo was on several occasions the victor at Olympia.