4.179.3
Jason did, and Triton then showed them the channel out of the shallows and set the tripod in his own temple; but first he prophesied over it, declaring the whole matter to Jason's comrades: namely, that should any descendant of the Argo's crew take away the tripod, then a hundred Greek cities would be founded on the shores of the Tritonian lake. Hearing this (it is said) the Libyan people of the country hid the tripod.
ch. 180
4.180.1
Next to these Machlyes are the Auseans; these and the Machlyes, separated by the Triton, live on the shores of the Tritonian lake. The Machlyes wear their hair long behind, the Auseans in front.
4.180.2
They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins.
4.180.3
Before the girls are set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Corinthian helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake shore.
4.180.4
With what armor they equipped their maidens before Greeks came to live near them, I cannot say; but I suppose the armor was Egyptian; for I maintain that the Greeks took their shield and helmet from Egypt.
4.180.5
As for Athena, they say that she was daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian lake, and that, being for some reason angry at her father, she gave herself to Zeus, who made her his own daughter. Such is their tale. The intercourse of men and women there is promiscuous; they do not cohabit but have intercourse like cattle.
4.180.6
When a woman's child is well grown, the men assemble within three months and the child is adjudged to be that man's whom it is most like.
ch. 181
4.181.1
I have now described all the nomadic Libyans who live on the coast. Farther inland than these is that Libyan country which is haunted by wild beasts, and beyond this wild beasts' haunt runs a ridge of sand that stretches from Thebes
of Egypt to the Pillars of Heracles. note
4.181.2
At intervals of about ten days' journey along this ridge there are masses of great lumps of salt in hills; on the top of every hill, a fountain of cold sweet water shoots up from the midst of the salt; men live around it who are farthest away toward the desert and inland from the wild beasts' country. The first on the journey from Thebes
, ten days distant from there, are the Ammonians, who follow the worship of the Zeus of Thebes
; for, as I have said before, the image of Zeus at Thebes
has the head of a ram.
4.181.3
They have another spring of water besides, which is warm at dawn, and colder at market-time, and very cold at noon;
4.181.4
and it is then that they water their gardens; as the day declines, the coldness abates, until at sunset the water grows warm. It becomes ever hotter and hotter until midnight, and then it boils and bubbles; after midnight it becomes ever cooler until dawn. This spring is called the Spring of the Sun.
ch. 182
4.182.1
At a distance of ten days' journey again from the Ammonians along the sandy ridge, there is a hill of salt like that of the Ammonians, and springs of water, where men live; this place is called Augila; it is to this that the Nasamones come to gather palm-fruit.
