Gortys has a river called Lusius flowing by it, so called in the neighbourhood from the tradition of Zeus being washed there after his birth. But those who live at some distance call the river Gortynius from the name of the village Gortys. This Gortynius is one of the coldest of streams. The Ister, the Rhine, the Hypanis, the Borysthenes, and other rivers that are congealed in winter, one might rightly call in my opinion winter rivers: for they flow through country mostly lying in snow, and the air in their neighbourhood is generally frosty. But those rivers which flow in a temperate climate, and refresh men in summer both in drinking and bathing, and in winter are not unpleasant, these are the rivers which I should say furnish cold water. Cold is the water of Cydnus that flows through the district of Tarsus, cold is the water of Melas by Side in Pamphylia: while the coldness of the river Ales near Colophon has been celebrated by elegiac poets. But Gortynius is colder still especially in summer. It has its sources at Thisoa on the borders of Methydrium, the place where it joins the Alpheus they call Rhæteæ.
Near the district of Thisoa is a village called Teuthis, formerly a town. In the war against Ilium it furnished a leader whose name was Teuthis, or according to others Ornytus. But when the winds were unfavourable to the Greeks at Aulis, and a contrary wind detained them there some time, Teuthis had some quarrel with Agamemnon, and was going to march back with his detachment of Arcadians. Then they say Athene in the semblance of Melas the son of Ops tried to divert Teuthis from his homeward march. But he in his boiling rage ran his spear into the goddess’ thigh, and marched his army back from Aulis. And when he got back home he thought the goddess shewed him her wounded thigh. And from that time a wasting disease seized on Teuthis, and that was the only part of Arcadia where the land produced no fruit. And some time after several oracular responses were given from Dodona, shewing them how to propitiate the goddess, and they made a statue of Athene with a wound in her thigh. I have seen this statue with the thigh bound with a purple bandage. In Teuthis there are also temples of Aphrodite and Artemis. So much for Teuthis.
On the road from Gortys to Megalopolis is erected a monument to those who fell in the battle against Cleomenes. This monument the people of Megalopolis call the Treaty Violation, because Cleomenes violated the treaty. Near this monument is a plain 60 stades in extent, and on the right are the ruins of the town of Brenthe, and the river Brentheates flows from thence, and joins the Alpheus about 5 stades further.
CHAPTER XXIX.
After crossing the Alpheus you come to the district of Trapezus, and the ruins of the town of Trapezus, and again as you turn to the Alpheus on the left from Trapezus is a place not far from the river called Bathos, where every third year they have rites to the Great Goddesses. And there is a spring there called Olympias, which flows only every other year, and near it fire comes out of the ground. And the Arcadians say that the fabled battle between the giants and the gods took place here, and not at Pallene in Thrace, and they sacrifice here to thunder and lightning and storms. In the Iliad Homer has not mentioned the Giants, but in the Odyssey[35] he has stated that the Læstrygones who attacked the ships of Odysseus were like giants and not men, he has also represented the king of the Phæacians saying that the Phæacians are near the gods as the Cyclopes and the race of giants.[36] But in the following lines he shews very clearly that the giants are mortal and not a divine race:
“Who ruled once o’er the overweening Giants:
But that proud race destroyed, and died himself.”[37]
The word used for race (λαὸς) here in Homer means a good many. The fable that the giants had dragons instead of feet is shewn both here and elsewhere to be merely a fable. Orontes a river in Syria, (which does not flow to the sea throughout through a level plain, but pours down along precipitous rocks), the Roman Emperor wanted to make navigable for ships from the sea as far as Antioch. So with great labour and expenditure of money he dug a canal fit for this purpose, and diverted the river into it. And when the old channel was dry, an earthenware coffin was discovered in it more than 11 cubits in length, and that was the size of the corpse in it which was a perfect man. This corpse the god in Clarus, when some Syrians consulted the oracle, said was Orontes of Indian race. And if the earth which was originally moist and damp first produced mortals by the warmth of the sun, what part of the world is likely to have produced mortals either earlier or bigger than India, which even up to our day produces beasts excelling ours both in strange appearance and in size?
And about 10 stades from the place called Bathos is Basilis, whose founder was Cypselus, who married his daughter to Cresphontes the son of Aristomachus. Basilis is now in ruins, and there are remains of a temple to Eleusinian Demeter. As you go on from thence and cross the Alpheus again you will come to Thocnia, which gets its name from Thocnus the son of Lycaon, and is quite deserted in our day. Thocnus is said to have built his town on the hill. And the river Aminius flows past this hill and falls into the Helisson, and at no great distance the Helisson flows into the Alpheus.
[35] Odyssey, x. 119, 120.