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that the flow of the river should remain compact through so
long a course, not mixing with the sea until it should fall
into the fancied channel, is entirely visionary; for we can
scarcely credit it of the Rhone, the body of the waters of which
remains compact during its passage through the lake, and
preserves a visible course, but in that instance both the distance is short and the lake is not agitated by waves like the
sea, but in this case of the Alpheus, note where there are great
storms and the waters are tossed with violence, the supposition is by no means worthy of attention. The fable of the
chalice being carried over is likewise a mere fabrication, for
it is not calculated for transfer, nor is it by any means probable it should be washed away so far, nor yet by such diffi-
cult passages. Many rivers, however, and in many parts of
the world, flow beneath the earth, but none for so great a
distance.—Still, although there may be no impossibility in
this circumstance, yet the above-mentioned accounts are altogether impossible, and almost as absurd as the fable related
of the Inachus: this river, as Sophocles note feigns,
Flowing from the heights of Pindus and Lacmus, passes from the
country of the Perrhaebi note to that of the Amphilochi note and the Acarnanians, and mingles its waters with the Achelous: note
and further on [he says],
Thence to Argos, cutting through the waves, it comes to the territory
of Lyrceius.
Those who would have the river Inopus to be a branch of
the Nile flowing to Delos, exaggerate this kind of marvel to
the utmost. Zoïlus the rhetorician, in his Eulogium of the
people of Tenedos, says that the river Alpheus flows from
Tenedos: yet this is the man who blames Homer for fabulous
writing. Ibycus also says that the Asopus, a river of Sicyon, note
flows from Phrygia. Hecataeus is more rational, who says
that the Inachus of the Amphilochi, which flows from Mount
Lacmus, from whence also the Aeas note descends, was distinct
from the river of like name in Argolis, and was so named after
Amphilochus, from whom likewise the city of Argos was de-
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].