Greek Texts & Translations

I have myself seen water coming up black from springs at Astyra. Astyra opposite Lesbos is the name of the hot baths in the district called Atarneus. It was this Atarneus, which the Chians received as a reward from the Persians as a reward for surrendering the suppliant, Pactyas the Lydian. ^note This water then has a black color; but the Romans have a white water, above the city across the river called Anio. When a man enters it, he is at first attacked with cold and shivering, but after a little time it warms him like the hottest drug.

All these springs that had something wonderful to show I have seen myself. For I pass over the less wonderful that I know, and it is no great marvel to find water that is salt and harsh. But there are two other kinds. The water in the White Plain, as it is called, in Caria, by the village with the name Dascylou Come, is warm and sweeter than milk to drink. I know that Herodotus says that a spring of bitter water flows into the river Hypanis. We can assuredly admit the truth of his statement, when in our days at Dicaearchia (Puteoli), in the land of the Tyrrhenians, a hot spring has been found, so acid that in a few years it dissolved the lead through which its water passed.

It contains a sanctuary of Athena with the title Coryphasia, and a house called the house of Nestor, in which there is a painting of him. His tomb is inside the city; the tomb at a little distance from Pylos is said to be the tomb of Thrasymedes. There is a cave inside the town, in which it is said that the cattle belonging to Nestor and to Neleus before him were kept.

These cattle must have been of Thessalian stock, having once belonged to Iphiclus the father of Protesilaus. Neleus demanded these cattle as bride gifts for his daughter from her suitors, and it was on their account that Melampus went to Thessaly to gratify his brother Bias. He was put in bonds by the herdsmen of Iphiclus, but received them as his reward for the prophecies which he gave to Iphiclus at his request. So it seems the men of those days made it their business to amass wealth of this kind, herds of horses and cattle, if it is the case that Nestor desired to get possession of the cattle of Iphiclus and that Eurystheus, in view of the reputation of the Iberian cattle, ordered Heracles to drive off the herd of Geryones.

Eryx too, who was reigning then in Sicily, plainly had so violent a desire for the cattle from Erytheia that he wrestled with Heracles, staking his kingdom on the match against these cattle. As Homer says in the Iliad
, ^note a hundred kine were the first of the bride gifts paid by Iphidamas the son of Antenor to his bride's father. This confirms my argument that the men of those days took the greatest pleasure in cattle.

But the cattle of Neleus were pastured for the most part across the border, I think. For the country of the Pylians in general is sandy and unable to provide so much grazing. Homer testifies to this, when he mentions Nestor, always adding that he was king of sandy Pylos.

The island of Sphacteria lies in front of the harbor just as Rheneia off the anchorage at Delos. It seems that places hitherto unknown have been raised to fame by the fortunes of men. For Caphereus in Euboea is famous since the storm that here befell the Greeks with Agamemnon on their voyage from Troy. Psyttaleia by Salamis we know from the destruction of the Persians there. In like manner the Lacedaemonian reverse made Sphacteria known to all mankind. The Athenians dedicated a bronze statue of Victory also on the acropolis as a memorial of the events at Sphacteria.