CHAPTER XXI.
And as you descend from thence and turn to the market-place you see the tomb of Cerdo, the wife of Phoroneus, and the temple of Æsculapius. And the temple of Artemis, under the name Persuasion, was erected also by Hypermnestra, when she was victorious over her father in the trial about Lynceus. There is also a brazen statue of Æneas, and a place called Delta, but why it is called Delta I purposely pass over, for I didn’t like the explanation. And in front of it is a temple of Zeus Promoter of Flight, and near it is the sepulchre of Hypermnestra the mother of Amphiaraus, and the sepulchre of Hypermnestra the daughter of Danaus, who lies in the same grave with Lynceus. And opposite them is the tomb of Talaus the son of Bias, about whom and his descendants I have spoken already. And there is a temple of Athene under the name of Trumpet, which they say Hegeleus built. This Hegeleus they say was the son of Tyrsenus, who was the son of Hercules and a Lydian woman, and Tyrsenus was the first who invented the trumpet, and Hegeleus his son taught the Dorians who followed Temenus the use of it, and that was why he called Athene Trumpet. And before the temple of Athene is they say the tomb of Epimenides: for the Lacedæmonians when they fought against the Gnossians took Epimenides alive, but killed him afterwards because he did not prophesy auspiciously for them, and they say they brought his remains, and buried them, here. And the building of white stone, nearly in the middle of the market-place, is not a trophy over Pyrrhus the king of Epirus, as the Argives say, but a memorial that his body was burnt here, inasmuch as elephants and all other things which he used in battle are represented here. This was the building for his funeral pyre: but his bones lie in the temple of Demeter, where in my account of Attica I have shown that he died. And at the entrance of this temple of Demeter you may see his brazen shield hanging over the door.
And not far from the building in the market-place of the Argives is a mound of earth. They say the head of the Gorgon Medusa lies under it. To omit fable, it has been recorded of her that she was the daughter of Phorcus, and that after the death of her father she ruled over the people that live near the Tritonian marsh, and used to go out hunting and led the Libyans in battle, and moreover resisted with her army the power of Perseus, though picked men followed him from the Peloponnese, but she was treacherously slain by night, and Perseus, marvelling at her beauty even after death, cut her head off and brought it home to display to the Greeks. But Procles the Carthaginian, the son of Eucrates, has another account more plausible than this one. The desert of Libya produces monsters scarce credible to those that hear of them, and there both wild men and wild women are born: and Procles said he had seen one of those wild men that had been taken to Rome. He conjectured therefore that Medusa was a woman who had wandered from them, and gone to the Tritonian marsh, and illtreated the inhabitants till Perseus slew her: and Athene he thought assisted Perseus in the work, because the men in the neighbourhood of the Tritonian marsh were sacred to her. And in Argos close to this monument of the Gorgon is the tomb of the Gorgon-slayer Perseus. Why she was called Gorgon is plain to the hearer at once.[23] They say she was the first woman who ever married a second husband, for she married one Œbalus, when her husband Perieres the son of Æolus was dead, with whom she had lived from her virginity. Previously it was customary for women to remain widows if their husband died. And before this tomb is a trophy erected in stone to the Argive Laphaes, whom, according to the Argive tradition, the people rose up against and expelled when he was king, and when he fled to Sparta the Lacedæmonians endeavoured to restore him, but the Argives being victorious in the battle slew Laphaes and most of the Lacedæmonians. And not far from this trophy is the temple of Leto, and a statue of her by Praxiteles. And the figure near the goddess is the maiden they call Chloris, who they say was the daughter of Niobe, and was originally called Melibœa. And when the children of Amphion and Niobe were slain by Apollo and Artemis, she alone and Amyclas were saved alive, as they supplicated Leto. But fear turned Melibœa so pale that she remained so all the rest of her life, insomuch that her name was changed from Melibœa into Chloris (pale). This Chloris and Amyclas the Argives say built the original temple of Leto. But I myself am of opinion, (for I lean more than most people to the authority of Homer,) that none of the children of Niobe survived. The following line bears me out.
“Two arrows only slew the whole family.”[24]
Homer therefore describes the whole family of Amphion as cut off.