CHAPTER XXXIII.
Of the islands near Trœzen one is so close to the mainland, that you can wade over to it at low water. It was called Sphæria in former days, and Sacred for the following reason. It contains the tomb of Sphærus, who they say was the charioteer of Pelops. He had a dream from Athene, that Æthra crossed over into the island with offerings for the dead, and when she crossed over there ’tis said that Poseidon had an intrigue with her. Accordingly Æthra built a temple here to Injurious Athene, and called the island Sacred instead of Sphæria: she also imposed the custom on the maidens of Trœzen that they should before marriage dedicate their maiden-girdle to Injurious Athene. And they say the island Calaurea was in ancient days sacred to Apollo, when Delphi belonged to Poseidon, it is also said that they exchanged these places with one another. And they produce in support of their statement the following oracle,
“It is all one whether you dwell at Delos or Calaurea
At sacred Pytho or the wind-swept Tænarus.”
There is also at Calaurea a sacred temple to Poseidon, and the priestess is a maiden till the period for marriage. And within the precincts is the tomb of Demosthenes. Fortune seems to have shown especial malignity to Demosthenes as earlier to Homer, since Homer was not only blind but overwhelmed by such poverty that he was a strolling beggar on every soil, and Demosthenes in his old age had to taste the bitterness of exile, and came to a violent end. Much has been said about Demosthenes by others and by himself, by which it is clear that he had no share in the money which Harpalus brought from Asia, but what was said afterwards I will relate. Harpalus, after having fled from Athens and crossed over with the fleet to Crete, was murdered not long afterwards by some of his attendant slaves: but some say he was treacherously murdered by the Macedonian Pausanias. And the dispenser of the money fled to Rhodes, and was arrested by Philoxenus the Macedonian, who had also demanded the extradition of Harpalus from the Athenians. And getting this lad he cross-questioned him, until he obtained full intelligence of those who had had any money from Harpalus: and when he ascertained their names he sent letters to Athens. Although in those letters he enumerated the names of those who had had any money from Harpalus, and the precise sum which each of them had, he made no mention whatever of Demosthenes, though he was most bitterly hated by Alexander, and although Philoxenus himself was privately his enemy. Demosthenes had honours paid to him in other parts of Greece also as well as by the inhabitants of Calaurea.