-- 20 --
height, since they called heights Sami; perhaps also this was
the acropolis of Arēnē, which the poet mentions in the
Catalogue of the Ships;
who inhabited Pylus, and the pleasant Arene; note
Il. ii. 591.
for as the position of Arēnē has not been clearly discovered
anywhere, it is conjectured, that it was most probably situated where the adjoining river Anigrus, formerly called
Minyeius, empties itself. As no inconsiderable proof of this,
Homer says,
There is a river Minyeius, which empties itself into the sea, near Arene. note
Il. ii. 721.
Now near the cave of the nymphs Anigriades is a fountain,
by which the subjacent country is rendered marshy, and filled
with pools of water. The Anigrus however receives the greater part of the water, being deep, but with so little current
that it stagnates. The place is full of mud, emits an offensive
smell perceptible at a distance of 26 stadia, and renders the
fish unfit for food. Some writers give this fabulous account
of these waters, and attribute the latter effect to the venom
of the Hydra, which some of the Centaurs note washed from
their wounds; others say, that Melampus used these cleansing
waters for the purification of the Proetades. note They are a
cure for alphi, or leprous eruptions, and the white tetter, and
the leichen. They say also that the Alpheus had its name
from its property of curing the disease alphi. note
Since then the sluggishness of the Anigrus, and the recoil
of the waters of the sea, produce a state of rest rather than a
current, they say, that its former name was Minyeïus, but
that some persons perverted the name and altered it to
Minteïus. The etymology of the name may be derived from
other sources; either from those who accompanied Chloris,
the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus; or,
