Greek Texts & Translations

There are other Aethiopians who are neighbours of the Mauri and extend as far as the Nasamones. For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus calls the Atlantes, and those who profess to know the measurements of the earth name the Lixitae, are the Libyans who live the farthest close to Mount Atlas, and they do not till the ground at all, but live on wild vines. But neither these Aethiopians nor yet the Nasamones have any river. For the water near Atlas, which provides a beginning to three streams, does not make any of the streams a river, as the sand swallows it all up at once. So the Aethiopians dwell near no river Ocean.

The water from Atlas is muddy,and near the source were crocodiles of not less than two cubits, which when the men approached dashed down into the spring. The thought has occurred to many that it is the reappearance of this water out of the sand which gives the Nile to Egypt. Mount Atlas is so high that its peaks are said to touch heaven, but is inaccessible because of the water and the presence everywhere of trees. Its region indeed near the Nasamones is known, but we know of nobody yet who has sailed along the parts facing the sea. I must now resume.

Neither this nor any other ancient statue of Nemesis has wings, for not even the holiest wooden images of the Smyrnaeans have them, but later artists, convinced that the goddess manifests herself most as a consequence of love, give wings to Nemesis as they do to Love. I will now go onto describe what is figured on the pedestal of the statue, having made this preface for the sake of clearness. The Greeks say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, while Leda suckled and nursed her. The father of Helen the Greeks like everybody else hold to be not Tyndareus but Zeus.

Having heard this legend Pheidias has represented Helen as being led to Nemesis by Leda, and he has represented Tyndareus and his children with a man Hippeus by name standing by with a horse. There are Agamemnon and Menelaus and Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and first husband of Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Orestes was passed over because of his crime against his mother, yet Hermione stayed by his side in everything and bore him a child. Next upon the pedestal is one called Epochus and another youth; the only thing I heard about them was that they were brothers of Oenoe, from whom the parish has its name.

Legend says that when Amphiaraus was exiled from Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot. Only they say that the incident did not happen here, the place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes to Chalcis. The divinity of Amphiaraus was first established among the Oropians, from whom afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them, such as Eleus in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaus, and Lebadea of the Boeotians dedicated to Trophonius. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue of Amphiaraus.

The altar shows parts. One part is to Heracles, Zeus, and Apollo Healer, another is given up to heroes and to wives of heroes, the third is to Hestia and Hermes and Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus. But Alcmaeon, because of his treatment of Eriphyle, is honored neither in the temple of Amphiaraus nor yet with Amphilochus. The fourth portion of the altar is to Aphrodite and Panacea, and further to Iaso, Health and Athena Healer. The fifth is dedicated to the nymphs and to Pan, and to the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. The Athenians too have an altar to Amphilochus in the city, and there is at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle of his which is the most trustworthy of my day.

The Oropians have near the temple a spring, which they call the Spring of Amphiaraus; they neither sacrifice into it nor are wont to use it for purifications or for lustral water. But when a man has been cured of a disease through a response the custom is to throw silver and coined gold into the spring, for by this way they say that Amphiaraus rose up after he had become a god. Iophon the Cnossian, a guide, produced responses in hexameter verse, saying that Amphiaraus gave them to the Argives who were sent against Thebes. These verses unrestrainedly appealed to popular taste. Except those whom they say Apollo inspired of old none of the seers uttered oracles, but they were good at explaining dreams and interpreting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims.