CHAPTER XXX.
There is in our days in Messenia, about 20 stades from the Chœrian dell, a town by the sea called Abia. They say in old times it was called Ire, and that it was one of the seven towns, which Homer represents Agamemnon as promising to Achilles. And when Hyllus and the Dorians were conquered in battle by the Achæans, then they say Abia, the nurse of Glenus the son of Hercules, went to Ire, and there lived, and built a temple of Hercules, and for that reason Cresphontes afterwards assigned her several honours, and changed the name of the town to her name Abia. There were notable temples there both to Hercules and Æsculapius.
And Pharæ is distant from Abia about 80 stades, and the water by the road is salt. The Emperor Augustus ordered the Messenians at Pharæ to be ranked under Laconia. The founder of the city was they say Pharis, the son of Hermes by Phylodamea the daughter of Danaus. And Pharis they say had no male children, but only a daughter Telegone. The direct line of genealogy has been given by Homer in the Iliad, who says that the twins Crethon and Ortilochus were the sons of Diocles, and that Diocles himself was the son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. But he has said nothing about Telegone, who according to the Messenian tradition was the wife of Alpheus and mother of Ortilochus. I have also heard at Pharæ that Diocles had a daughter Anticlea as well as his twin sons, and that she bare Nicomachus and Gorgasus to Machaon the son of Æsculapius: they lived at Pharæ, and after the death of Diocles succeeded to the kingdom. And a constant tradition about them has prevailed even to this day, that they have the power of healing illnesses and people maimed in body. And because of this the people sacrifice to them and offer votive offerings. At Pharæ there is also a temple and ancient statue of Fortune. The first person that I know of that has mentioned Fortune is Homer. He has mentioned her in his Hymn to Demeter, when enumerating the other daughters of Oceanus, how they played with Demeter’s daughter Proserpine, and among them Fortune, also a daughter of Oceanus. These are the lines.[59] “We all were in the pleasant meadow, Leucippe, Phæno, Electra, and Ianthe, Melobosis, and Fortune, and Ocyroe of the beautiful eyes.” But he has said nothing further about her, how she is the greatest goddess in human affairs and has the greatest influence, as in the Iliad he represented Athene and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis as dreaded in childbirth, and Aphrodite as the goddess of marriages. He has not symbolized Fortune in this way. But Bupalus, a man of wonderful ability in building temples and making models of animals, is the first person we know of that made a statue of Fortune. His was for the people of Smyrna. Fortune has a globe on her head, and in one of her hands what is called by the Greeks the horn of Amalthea. Thus did he typify the actions of this goddess. Pindar also subsequently wrote various lines about Fortune, and named her City-Preserver.