And after crossing the Electra you come to the well called Achaia, and the ruins of the city Dorium. And it is here at Dorium that Homer has described Thamyris as having been stricken blind, because he said he could excel the Muses in singing.[61] But Prodicus the Phocæan, (if the poem called the Minyad is indeed his), says that punishments were reserved for Thamyris in Hades because of his boastful language to the Muses. But I am of opinion that Thamyris lost his eyesight through disease: as indeed happened to Homer subsequently. But Homer went on composing all his life, for he did not yield to his misfortune, whereas Thamyris wooed the Muse no longer, completely overcome by his ever-present trouble.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus is about 80 stades, and the Pamisus flows clear and limpid through arable land, and is navigable some 10 stades inland. And some sea fish swim up it especially at the season of spring, as they do also up the rivers Rhenus and Mæander: but mostly do they swim up the river Achelous, which has its outlet near the islands called the Echinades. And the fish that swim up the Pamisus are finer in appearance, because the water is clear, and not full of mud like the other rivers I have mentioned. And mullets, being fishes that love mud, are fond of muddy rivers. Now the Greek rivers do not seem to produce beasts dangerous to man’s life, like the Indus, and the Nile in Egypt, and the Rhenus, the Ister, the Euphrates, and the Phasis. For they produce beasts that devour man, in appearance like the Glanides at Hermus and Mæander, except that they have a darker skin and more strength. In these respects the Glanides are deficient. And the Indus and Nile both furnish crocodiles, and the Nile hippopotamuses also, which are as destructive to man as the crocodile. But the Greek rivers are not formidable for wild beasts, for even in the river Aous, that flows through the Thesprotian mainland, the dogs are not river dogs but sea dogs that swim up from the sea.
On the right of the Pamisus is Corone, a town near the sea, and under the mountain Mathia. And on the road to it is a place near the sea, which they think is the temple of Ino: for they say that the goddess landed here from the sea, and was worshipped by the name of Leucothea instead of Ino. And at no great distance the river Bias discharges itself into the sea, which river took its name they say from Bias the son of Amythaon. About 20 stades from the road is the well Plataniston, the water flows from a plane-tree, broad and hollow inside, and like a small cave, and fresh water flows from thence to Corone. The name of the town was of old Æpea, but after the Messenians were restored to the Peloponnese by the Thebans, they say that Epimelides, who was sent to rebuild it, called it Coronea, after Coronea in Bœotia where he came from, but the Messenians mispronounced the name Corone from the first, and in process of time their mistake became prevalent. There is also another tradition that when they were digging the foundations of their walls they found a brass crow.[62] The gods here who have temples are Artemis called the Rearer of children, and Dionysus, and Æsculapius. The statues of Æsculapius and Dionysus are of stone, and there is a brazen statue of Zeus Soter in the market-place. There is also a brazen statue of Athene in the citadel in the open air, with a crow in her hand. I also saw the tomb of Epimelides. Why they call the harbour the harbour of the Achæans I do not know.
As you go on about 80 stades from Corone you come to a temple of Apollo, near the sea, which is held in high honour: according to the Messenian tradition it is the most ancient of all Apollo’s temples, and the god heals diseases. They call the god Corydus.[63] His statue here is of wood, but there is a brazen statue the work of Argeotas, a votive offering they say of the Argonauts. And near the town of Corone is Colonides. Its inhabitants say they were not Messenians but were brought by Colænus from Attica, who according to an oracle followed the crested lark there. And in process of time they picked up the Dorian dialect and customs. And the town of Colonides is on a height not far from the sea.
And the people of Asine were originally neighbours of the Lycoritæ, and dwelt near Mount Parnassus. They were then called Dryopes from their founder, which name they retained when they came to the Peloponnese. But in the third generation afterwards, when Phylas was king, the Dryopes were beaten in battle by Hercules, and were taken to Delphi and offered to Apollo. And being brought back to the Peloponnese by the oracle which the god gave Hercules, they first occupied Asine near Hermion, and, having been expelled thence by the Argives, they dwelt in Messenia by permission of the Lacedæmonians, and when in process of time the Messenians were restored they were not turned out by them from Asine. And the account the people of Asine themselves give is as follows. They admit they were conquered in battle by Hercules, and that their town on Mount Parnassus was captured, but they deny that they were led captive to Apollo, but when their walls were taken by Hercules, they left their town they say and fled for refuge to the heights of Parnassus; and afterwards crossing over in ships to the Peloponnese became suppliants of Eurystheus, and he being a bitter enemy of Hercules gave them Asine in Argolis to dwell in. And the Asinæi are the only descendants of the Dryopes that still plume themselves on that name, very unlike the Eubœans that live at Styra. For they too are Dryopes by origin, who did not participate in the contest with Hercules but dwelt at some distance from the town. But they despise the name Dryopes, just as the inhabitants of Delphi object to be called Phocians. Whereas the Asinæi rejoice in the name of Dryopes, and have evidently made the holiest of their temples an imitation of those they formerly erected at Mount Parnassus. They have not only a temple of Apollo, but a temple and ancient statue of Dryops, whose mysteries they celebrate annually, and say that he was the son of Apollo. And Asine lies by the sea just as the old Asine in Argolis did, and the distance from Colonides is about 40 stades, and at about the same distance in the other direction is the Promontory of Acritas, just in front of which is the deserted island of Theganussa. And not far from Acritas is the harbour of Phœnicus and some islands called Œnussæ opposite the harbour.
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?