[64] See Sueton. Calig. 56, 58. The word was the word for the day given to soldiers.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Of all the mountains of Greece Helicon is the most fertile and full of trees planted there: and the purslane bushes afford everywhere excellent food for goats. And those who live at Helicon say that the grass and roots on the mountain are by no means injurious to man. Moreover the pastures make the venom of snakes less potent, so that those that are bitten here mostly escape with their life, if they meet with a Libyan of the race of the Psylli, or with some antidote from some other source. And yet the venom of wild snakes is generally deadly both to men and animals, and the condition of the pastures contributes greatly to the strength of the venom, for I have heard from a Phœnician that in the mountainous part of Phœnicia the roots make the vipers more formidable. He said also that he had seen a man flee from the attack of a viper and run to a tree, and the viper followed after and blew its venom against the tree, and that killed the man. Such was what he told me. And I also know that the following happens in Arabia in the case of vipers that live near balsam trees. The balsam tree is about the same size as a myrtle bush, and its leaves are like those of the herb marjoram. And the vipers in Arabia more or less lodge under these balsam trees, for the sap from them is the food most agreeable to them, and moreover they rejoice in the shade of the trees. Whenever then the proper season comes for the Arabians to gather the sap of the balsam tree, they take with them two poles and knock them together and so frighten off the vipers, for they don’t like to kill them as they look upon them as sacred. But if anyone happens to be bitten by these vipers, the wound is similar to that from steel, and there is no fear of venom: for inasmuch as these vipers feed on the most sweet-scented ointment, the venom changes its deadly properties for something milder. Such is the case there.
CHAPTER XXIX.
They say that Ephialtes and Otus first sacrificed to the Muses on Helicon, and called the mountain sacred to the Muses, and built Ascra, of which Hegesinous speaks as follows in his poem about Attica.
“By Ascra lay the earth-shaking Poseidon, and she as time rolled on bare him a son Œoclus, who first built Ascra with the sons of Aloeus, Ascra at the foot of many-fountained Helicon.”
This poem of Hegesinous I have not read, for it was not extant in my time, but Callippus the Corinthian in his account of Orchomenus cites some of the lines to corroborate his account, and similarly I myself have cited some of them from Callippus. There is a tower at Ascra in my time, but nothing else remains. And the sons of Aloeus thought the Muses were three in number, and called them Melete and Mneme and Aoide. But afterwards they say the Macedonian Pierus, who gave his name to the mountain in Macedonia, came to Thespia and made 9 Muses, and changed their names to the ones they now have. And this Pierus did either because it seemed wiser, or in obedience to an oracle, or so taught by some Thracian, for the Thracians seem in old times to have been in other respects more clever than the Macedonians, and not so neglectful of religion. There are some who say that Pierus had 9 daughters, and that they had the same names as the Muses, and that those who were called by the Greeks the sons of the Muses were called the grandchildren of Pierus. But Mimnermus, in the Elegiac verses which he composed about the battle of the people of Smyrna against Gyges and the Lydians, says in his prelude that the older Muses were the daughters of Uranus, and the younger ones the daughters of Zeus. And at Helicon, on the left as you go to the grove of the Muses, is the fountain Aganippe. Aganippe was they say the daughter of Termesus, the river which flows round Helicon, and, if you go straight for the grove, you will come to an image of Eupheme carved in stone. She is said to have been the nurse of the Muses. And next to her is a statue of Linus, on a small rock carved like a cavern, to whom every year they perform funeral rites before they sacrifice to the Muses. It is said that Linus was the son of Urania by Amphiaraus the son of Poseidon, and that he had greater fame for musical skill than either his contemporaries or predecessors, and that Apollo slew him because he boasted himself as equal to the god. And on the death of Linus sorrow for him spread even to foreign lands, so that even the Egyptians have a Lament called Linus, but in their own dialect Maneros.[65] And the Greek poets have represented the sorrows of Linus as a Greek legend, as Homer who in his account of the shield of Achilles says that Hephæstus among other things represented a harper boy singing the song of Linus.
“And in the midst a boy on the clear lyre
Harped charmingly, and sang of handsome Linus.”[66]
And Pamphus, who composed the most ancient Hymns for the Athenians, as the sorrow for Linus grew to such a pitch, called him Œtolinus, (sad Linus). And the Lesbian Sappho, having learnt from Pamphus this name of Œtolinus, sings of Adonis and Œtolinus together. And the Thebans say that Linus was buried at Thebes, and that after the fatal defeat of the Greeks at Chæronea Philip the son of Amyntas, according to a vision he had in a dream, removed the remains of Linus to Macedonia, and that afterwards in consequence of another dream he sent them back to Thebes, but they say that all the coverings of the tomb and other distinctive marks are obliterated through lapse of time. Another tradition of the Thebans says that there was another Linus besides this one, called the son of Ismenius, and that Hercules when quite a boy slew him: he was Hercules’ music-master. But neither of these Linuses composed any poems: or if they did they have not come down to posterity.