Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XXXV.

And Mothone, which before the expedition against Troy and even subsequently to that war was called Pedasus, afterwards changed its name to Mothone from the daughter of Œneus as the inhabitants say: for Œneus the son of Porthaon after the capture of Ilium retired they say with Diomede to the Peloponnese, and had by a concubine a daughter Mothone. But in my opinion the Rock called Mothon gave its name to Mothone, a rock which constitutes a natural harbour, for being much of it sunken under the water it narrows the entrance for ships, and at the same time is a kind of breakwater against the violence of the waves. I have already described how the Lacedæmonians, in the days when Damocratidas was king at Argos, gave Mothone to the people of Nauplia, who had been expelled from their city for their Laconian proclivities; and how even after the restoration of the Messenians they were not interfered with. The people of Nauplia were I imagine in ancient times Egyptians, and, having come to Argolis in their ships with Danaus, they formed three generations afterwards a colony at Nauplia under Nauplius the son of Amymone. And the Emperor Trajan granted the people of Mothone a free constitution. But in older days they alone of all the Messenians had the following serious misfortune. Thesprotia in Epirus was in a ruinous condition from anarchy. For Deidamia the daughter of Pyrrhus had no children, and on her death handed over the government to the people. She was the daughter of Pyrrhus, the son of Ptolemy, the son of Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus: of this last Pyrrhus the son of Æacides I have given an account earlier in my description of Attica. Procles the Carthaginian has given Alexander the son of Philip more praise for his good fortune and the lustre of his exploits, but for the disposition of an army and strategical tactics in the face of an enemy he says Pyrrhus was the better man. And when the people of Epirus became a democracy, they shewed a want of ballast in several respects, and entirely disregarded their rulers: and the Illyrians that dwelt north of Epirus by the Ionian sea became their masters by sudden attack. For we know of no democracy but Athens that ever rose to greatness. The Athenians indeed rose to their zenith by democracy: but in native intelligence they were superior to the other Greeks, and obeyed the laws more than democracies generally do.

And the Illyrians, when they had once tasted the sweets of conquest, longed for more and still more, and equipped a fleet, and made piratic excursions everywhere, and sailed to Mothone and anchored there as with friendly intent, and sent a messenger into the town and asked for some wine for their ships. And when a few men brought this wine, they paid for it the price the people of Mothone asked for it, and sold them in turn some of their cargoes. And on the following day more came from the city and a brisker traffic ensued. And at last women and men came down to the ships, and sold wine and received goods in turn from the barbarians. Then the Illyrians in the height of their daring captured many men and still more women, and clapped them on board, and sailed away for the Ionian sea, having half stripped the town of its population.

At Mothone is a temple of Athene the Goddess of Winds, Diomede they say dedicated the statue of the goddess and gave her that title, for violent winds and unseasonable used to blow over the place and do much harm, but after Diomede prayed to Athene, no trouble from winds ever came to them thenceforward. There is also a temple of Artemis here, and some water mixed with pitch in a well, in appearance very like Cyzicenian ointment. Water indeed can assume every colour and smell. The bluest I have ever seen is at Thermopylæ, not all the water but that which flows into the swimming-bath which the people of the place call the women’s Pots. And reddish water very like blood is seen in the land of the Hebrews near Joppa: the water is very near the sea, and the tradition about the spring is that Perseus, after killing the sea monster to whom the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, washed away the blood there. And black water welling up from springs I have seen at Astyra which is opposite Lesbos, the warm baths are in a village called Atarneus, which was given to the Chians by the Medes as a reward for giving up to them the suppliant Pactyas the Lydian. This water is black: and not far from a town across the river Anio the Romans have some white water: and when one bathes in it it is at first cold and makes one shudder, but if one stays in it a little time it is hot as fire. All these wonderful springs I have myself seen, and those of lesser wonder I purposely pass over, for to find water salt and rough to the palate is no great wonder. But there are two very remarkable kinds of water: one at Caria in the plain called White, near a village called Dascylus, warm and sweeter to drink than milk: and the other Herodotus describes as a spring of bitter water discharging itself into the river Hypanis. How then shall we refuse to credit that warm water is found at Dicæarchia[64] among the Tyrrhenians, so hot that in a few years it melts the lead through which it flows?