Straightway a thick stream (αὐλὸς) through the nostrils rush'd.

[[302]] And we call a helmet also, when it rises up in a ridge out of the centre, αὐλῶπις. And at Athens there are some sacred places called αὐλῶνες, which are mentioned by Philochorus in his ninth book. And they use the word in the masculine gender, ὁι αὐλῶνες, as Thucydides does in his fourth book; and as, in fact, all prose writers do. But the poets use it in the feminine gender. Carcines says in his Achilles—

Βαθεῖαν εἰς αὐλῶνα—Into a deep ravine which surrounded the army.

And Sophocles, in his Scythians, writes—

The crags and caverns, and the deep ravines
Along the shore (ἐπακτίας αὐλῶνας).

And therefore we ought to understand that it is used as a feminine noun by Eratosthenes in his Mercury—

A deep ravine runs through (βαθὺς αὐλών),

instead of βαθεῖα, just as we find θῆλυς ἐέρση, where θῆλυς is feminine. Everything of that kind then is called αὐλὴ or αὐλών; but at the present day they call palaces αὐλαὶ, as Menander does—

To haunt palaces (αὐλαὶ) and princes.

And Diphilus says—