“Crossing with rapid feet snow-crown’d Parnassus he came to the immortal fountain of Castalia, the daughter of Achelous.”
I have also heard that the water of Castalia is a gift of the river Cephisus. Alcæus indeed so represents it in his Prelude to Apollo, and his statement is confirmed by the people of Lilæa, who believe that the local cakes and other things, which they throw into the Cephisus on certain stated days, reappear in the Castalia.
[96] Odyssey, xix. 428-451.
CHAPTER IX.
Delphi is everywhere hilly, the sacred precincts of Apollo and other parts of the town alike. The sacred precincts are very large and in the upper part of the town, and have several entrances. I will enumerate all the votive offerings that are best worthy of mention. The athletes however, and musical competitors, of no great merit I do not think worthy of attention, and notable athletes I have already described in my account of Elis. At Delphi then there is a statue of Phayllus of Croton, who had no victory at Olympia, but was twice victor in the pentathlum and once in the course in the Pythian games, and fought a naval engagement against the Medes, having furnished a ship himself, and manned it with some people of Croton who were sojourners in Greece. So much for Phayllus of Croton. On the entrance to the sacred enclosure is a bull in brass by Theopropus the Æginetan, the votive offering of the Corcyræans. The tradition is that a bull in Corcyra left the herd and pasture, and used to resort to the sea bellowing as he went; and as this happened every day the herdsman went down to the sea, and beheld a large shoal of tunny fish. And he informed the people of Corcyra, and they, as they had great difficulty in catching these tunnies much as they wished, sent messengers to Delphi. And then in obedience to the oracle they sacrificed the bull to Poseidon, and after this sacrifice caught the fish, and offered both at Olympia and Delphi the tenth of their catch. And next are the votive offerings of the people of Tegea from the spoils of the Lacedæmonians, an Apollo and Victory, and some local heroes; as Callisto the daughter of Lycaon, and Arcas who gave his name to Arcadia, and the sons of Arcas, Elatus and Aphidas and Azan; and besides them Triphylus, (whose mother was not Erato but Laodamia, the daughter of Amyclas king at Lacedæmon), and also Erasus the son of Triphylus. As to the artificers of these statues, Pausanias of Apollonia made the Apollo and Callisto, and the Victory and effigy of Arcas were by Dædalus of Sicyon, Triphylus and Azan were by the Arcadian Samolas, and Elatus and Aphidas and Erasus were by the Argive Antiphanes. All these the people of Tegea sent to Delphi after the capture of the Lacedæmonians who invaded them. And opposite them are the votive offerings of the Lacedæmonians when they vanquished the Athenians, statues of Castor and Pollux and Zeus and Apollo and Artemis, and besides them Poseidon crowning Lysander the son of Aristocritus, and Abas who was Lysander’s prophet, and Hermon the pilot of Lysander’s flag-ship. This statue of Hermon was designed by Theocosmus the Megarian, as the Megarians ranked Hermon among their citizens. And Castor and Pollux are by the Argive Antiphanes, and Abas is by Pison from Calauria near Trœzen, and Artemis and Poseidon and Lysander are by Dameas, and Apollo and Zeus by Athenodorus. Both Dameas and Athenodorus were Arcadians from Clitor. And behind the statues we have just mentioned are those of the Spartans or their allies who fought for Lysander at the battle of Ægos-potamoi, as Aracus the Lacedæmonian, and Erianthes the Bœotian beyond Mimas, and then Astycrates, and the Chians Cephisocles and Hermophantus and Hicesius, and the Rhodians Timarchus and Diagoras, and the Cnidian Theodamus, and the Ephesian Cimmerius, and the Milesian Æantides. All these were by Tisander. The following were by Alypus of Sicyon, Theopompus from Myndus, and Cleomedes of Samos, and from Eubœa Aristocles of Carystus and Autonomus of Eretria, and Aristophantus of Corinth, and Apollodorus of Trœzen, and from Epidaurus in Argolis Dion. And next to these are the Achæan Axionicus from Pellene, and Theares from Hermion, and Pyrrhias from Phocis, and Comon from Megara, and Agasimenes from Sicyon, and Telycrates from Leucas, and Pythodotus from Corinth, and Euantidas from Ambracia, and lastly the Lacedæmonians Epicyridas and Eteonicus. All these are they say by Patrocles and Canachus. The reverse that the Athenians sustained at Ægos-potamoi they maintain befell them through foul play, for their Admirals Tydeus and Adimantus were they say bribed by Lysander. And in proof of this they bring forward the following Sibylline oracle. “Then shall Zeus the lofty-thunderer, whose strength is almighty, lay grievous woes on the Athenians, fierce battle for their ships of war, that shall perish through the treachery and villainy of their commanders.” They also cite these other lines from the oracles of Musæus, “Verily a fierce storm is coming on the Athenians through the villainy of their commanders, but there shall be some comfort, they shall level low the state that inflicted this disaster, and exact vengeance.” So much for this affair. And as for the engagement between the Lacedæmonians and Argives beyond Thyrea, the Sibyl foretold that it would be a drawn battle, but the Argives thinking they had got the best of it in the action sent to Delphi as a votive offering a brazen horse by Antiphanes of Argos, doubtless an imitation of the Trojan Horse.
CHAPTER X.
On the basement under this horse is an inscription, which states that the following statues were dedicated from the tenth of the spoils of Marathon. These statues are Athene and Apollo, and of the commanders Miltiades, and of those called heroes Erechtheus and Cecrops and Pandion, and Leos, and Antiochus the son of Hercules by Meda the daughter of Phylas, and Ægeus, and of the sons of Theseus Acamas. These, in accordance with an oracle from Delphi, gave names to the Athenian tribes. Here too are Codrus the son of Melanthus, and Theseus, and Phyleus, who are no longer ranked among the Eponymi. All these that I have mentioned are by Phidias, and these too are really the tenth of the spoils of Marathon. But the statues of Antigonus, and his son Demetrius, and the Egyptian Ptolemy, were sent to Delphi later, Ptolemy through goodwill, but the Macedonians through fear.
And near this horse are other votive offerings of the Argives, statues of those associated with Polynices in the expedition against Thebes, as Adrastus the son of Talaus, and Tydeus the son of Œneus, and the descendants of Prœtus, (Capaneus the son of Hipponous, and Eteoclus the son of Iphis), and Polynices, and Hippomedon (Adrastus’ sister’s son), and near them the chariot of Amphiaraus and in it Baton, the charioteer and also kinsman of Amphiaraus, and lastly Alitherses. These are by Hypatodorus and Aristogiton, and were made, so the Argives themselves say, out of the spoils of the victory which they and their Athenian allies obtained at Œnoe in Argolis. It was after the same action, I think, that the Argives erected the statues of the Epigoni. They are here at any rate, as Sthenelus and Alcmæon, who was, I take it, honoured above Amphilochus in consequence of his age, and Promachus, and Thersander, and Ægialeus, and Diomede, and between the two last Euryalus. And opposite these are some other statues, dedicated by the Argives who assisted Epaminondas and the Thebans in restoring the Messenians. There are also effigies of heroes, as Danaus the most powerful king at Argos, and Hypermnestra the only one of her sisters with hands unstained by murder, and near her Lynceus, and all those that trace their descent from Hercules, or go back even further to Perseus.
There are also the horses of the Tarentines in brass, and captive women of the Messapians (barbarians near Tarentum), by Ageladas the Argive. The Lacedæmonians colonized Tarentum under the Spartan Phalanthus, who, when he started on this colony, was told by an oracle from Delphi that he was to acquire land and found a city where he saw rain from a clear sky. At first he paid no great heed to this oracle, and sailed to Italy without consulting any interpreters, but when, after victories over the barbarians, he was unable to capture any of their cities, or get possession of any of their land, he recollected the oracle, and thought the god had prophesied impossibilities: for it could not rain he thought from a clear and bright sky. And his wife, who had accompanied him from home, endeavoured to comfort him in various ways, as he was in rather a despondent condition, and laid his head on her knees, and began to pick out the lice, and in her goodwill it so fell out that she wept when she thought how her husband’s affairs made no good progress. And she shed tears freely on Phalanthus’ head, and then he understood the oracle, for his wife’s name was Æthra (clear sky), and so on the following night he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the greatest and most prosperous of their maritime cities. They say the hero Taras was the son of Poseidon and a local Nymph, and both the city and river got their name from him.