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The disaster that befell Helice is but one of the many proofs that the wrath of the God of Suppliants is inexorable. The god at
Consider the Areopagus, and the smoking altars
Of the Eumenides, where the Lacedaemonians are to be thy suppliants,
When hard-pressed in war. Kill them not with the sword,
And wrong not suppliants. For suppliants are sacred and holy.
The Greeks were reminded of these words when Peloponnesians arrived at
On this occasion the Athenians allowed the suppliants to go away unharmed, but subsequently the magistrates themselves put to death the suppliants of Athena, when Cylon and his supporters had seized the Acropolis. So the slayers themselves and also their descendants were regarded as accursed to the goddess. The Lacedaemonians too put to death men who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Taenarum. Presently their city was shaken by an earthquake so continuous and violent that no house in
The destruction of Helice occurred while Asteius was still archon at
After Helice you will turn from the sea to the right and you will come to the town of Ceryneia. It is built on a mountain above the high road, and its name was given to it either by a native potentate or by the river Cerynites, which, flowing from
built as it was like the wall of
In Ceryneia is a sanctuary of the Eumenides, which they say was established by Orestes. Whosoever enters with the desire to see the sights, if he be guilty of bloodshed, defilement or impiety, is said at once to become insane with fright, and for this reason the right to enter is not given to all and sundry. The images made of wood . . . they are not very large in size, and at the entrance to the sanctuary are statues of women, made of stone and of artistic workmanship. The natives said that the women are portraits of the former priestesses of the Eumenides.
7.25.8
On returning from Ceryneia to the high road, if you go along it for a short distance you may turn aside again to
The only Burians to survive were those who chanced to be absent at the time, either on active service or for some other reason, and these became the second founders of Bura. There is a temple here of Demeter, one of Aphrodite and Dionysus, and a third of Eileithyia. The images are of Pentelic marble, and were made by Eucleides of
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