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He also represents the Styx as a river in Hades, and Athena says that Zeus does not remember that because of her he kept Heracles safe throughout the labours imposed by Eurystheus.
For if I had known this in my shrewd heart
Homer, unknown location.
When he sent him to Hades the gate-keeper,
To fetch out of Erebus the hound of hateful Hades,
He would never have escaped the sheer streams of' the river Styx.
The water trickling down the cliff by the side of Nonacris falls first to a high rock, through which it passes and then descends into the river Crathis. Its water brings death to all, man and beast alike. It is said too that it once brought death even upon goats, which drank of the water first; later on all the wonderful properties of the water were learnt.
8.18.5For glass, crystal, murrhine vessels, other articles men make of stone, and pottery, are all broken by the water of the Styx, while things of horn or of bone, with iron, bronze, lead, tin, silver and electrum, are all corroded by this water. Gold too suffers just like all the other metals, and yet gold is immune to rust, as the Lesbian poetess bears witness and is shown by the metal itself.
8.18.6So heaven has assigned to the most lowly things the mastery over things far more esteemed than they. For pearls are dissolved by vinegar, while diamonds, the hardest of stones, are melted by the blood of the he-goat. The only thing that can resist the water of the Styx is a horse's hoof. When poured into it the water is retained, and does not break up the hoof. Whether Alexander, the son of Philip, met his end by this poison I do not know for certain, but I do know that there is a story to this effect.
8.18.7
Above Nonacris are the Aroanian Mountains, in which is a cave. To this cave, legend says, the daughters of Proetus fled when struck with madness; Melampus by secret sacrifices and purifications brought them down to a place called
They say that
ch. 19
8.19.1
There is a clan of the Arcadians, called the Cynaetheans, the same folk who dedicated the image of Zeus at The most notable things here include a sanctuary of Dionysus, to whom they hold a feast in the winter, at which men smeared with grease take up from a herd of cattle a bull, whichever one the god suggest to them, and carry it to the sanctuary. This is the manner of their sacrifice. Here there is a spring of cold water, about two stades away from the city, and above it grows a plane-tree. If a rabid dog turn a man mad, or wound or otherwise endanger him, to drink this water is a cure. For this reason they call the spring Alyssus (Curer of madness). So it would appear that the Arcadians have in the water near Pheneus, called the Styx, a thing made to be a mischief to man, while the spring among the Cynaetheans is a boon to make up for the bane in the other place.
One of the roads from Pheneus, which go westward, remains, the one on the left. This road leads to Cleitor, and extends by the side of the work of Heracles, which made a course for the river Aroanius. By it the road goes down to a place called Lycuria, which is the boundary between Pheneus and Cleitor.
ch. 20
8.20.1
Advancing about fifty stades from Lycuria, you will come to the source of the I pass over the story current among the Syrians who live on the river Orontes, and give the account of the Arcadians and Eleans. Oenomaus, prince of
Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
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