And water of the Styx, that trickles down.”[28]
Here he represents the water of the Styx dripping down as you may see it. But in the catalogue of those who went with Guneus he makes the water of the Styx flow into the river Titaresius.[29] He has also represented the Styx as a river of Hades, and Athene says that Zeus does not remember that she saved Hercules in it in one of the Labours imposed by Eurystheus.
“For could I have foreseen what since has chanced,
When he was sent to Hades jailor dread
To bring from Erebus dread Hades’ Cerberus,
He would not have escaped the streams of Styx.”
(Il. viii. 366-369.)
Now the water that drips from the cliff near Nonacris falls first upon a lofty rock, and oozes through it into the river Crathis, and its water is deadly both to man and beast. It is said also that it was deadly to goats who first drank of the water. But in time this was well known, as well as other mysterious properties of the water. Glass and crystal and porcelain, and various articles made of stone, and pottery ware, are broken by the water of the Styx. And things made of horn, bone, iron, brass, lead, tin, silver, and amber, melt when put into this water. Gold also suffers from it as all other metals, although one can purify gold from rust, as the Lesbian poetess Sappho testifies, and as anyone can test by experiment. The deity has as it seems granted to things which are least esteemed the property of being masters of things held in the highest value. For pearls are melted by vinegar, and the adamant, which is the hardest of stones, is melted by goat’s blood. A horse’s hoof alone is proof against the water of the Styx, for if poured into a hoof the hoof is not broken. Whether Alexander the son of Philip really died of this poisonous water of the Styx I do not know, but there is a tradition to that effect.
Beyond Nonacris there are some mountains called Aroania and a cave in them, into which they say the daughters of Prœtus fled when they went mad, till Melampus brought them back to a place called Lusi, and cured them by secret sacrifices and purifications. The people of Pheneus graze their flocks on most of the mountains Aroania, but Lusi is on the borders of Clitor. It was they say formerly a town, and Agesilaus a native of it was proclaimed victor with a race-horse, when the Amphictyones celebrated the eleventh Pythiad, but in our days there are not even any ruins of it in existence. So the daughters of Prœtus were brought back by Melampus to Lusi, and healed of their madness in the temple of Artemis, and ever since the people of Clitor call Artemis Hemerasia.
[28] Iliad, xv. 36, 37.