[57] Iliad, ii. 307, 310.
CHAPTER XX.
In that part of the district of Tanagra near the sea is a place called Delium, in which are statues of Artemis and Leto. And the people of Tanagra say their founder was Pœmander, the son of Chæresilaus the son of Iasius the son of Eleuther, who was the son of Apollo by Æthusa the daughter of Poseidon. And Pœmander they say married Tanagra the daughter of Æolus, though Corinna in her verses about her says that she was the daughter of Asopus. As her life was prolonged to a very advanced age they say that the people who lived round about called her Graia, and in process of time called the city so too. And the name remained so long that Homer speaks of the city by that name in his Catalogue, in the line
“Thespea, and Graia, and spacious Mycalessus.”[58]
But in process of time it got its old name Tanagra back again.
At Tanagra is the tomb of Orion, and the mountain Cerycius, where they say Hermes was reared. There is also the place called Polus, where they say Atlas sits and meditates on things under the earth and things in heaven, of whom Homer writes,
“Daughter of astute Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and who by himself supports the lofty pillars, which keep apart earth and heaven.”[59]
And in the temple of Dionysus the statue of the god by Calamis in Parian stone is well worth looking at, but more wonderful still is a statue of Triton. And a legend about Triton of hoar antiquity says that the women of Tanagra before the orgies of Dionysus bathed in the sea to purify themselves, and as they were swimming about Triton assailed them, and they prayed Dionysus to come to their aid, and the god hearkened to them and conquered Triton after a fight with him. Another legend lacks the antiquity of this, but is more plausible. It relates that, when the herds were driven to the sea, Triton lay in ambush and carried some of them off. He also plundered small vessels, till the people of Tanagra filled a bowl full of wine for him. And he came to it attracted they say by its aroma, and drank of it and fell asleep and tumbled down the rocks, and a man of Tanagra smote his head off with an axe. And for this reason his statue has no head. And because he was captured when drunk they think he was killed by Dionysus.
[58] Iliad, ii. 498.
[59] Odyssey, i. 52-54.