Greek Texts & Translations

Hesiod for instance knew nothing of Priapus, and he resembles the Athenian gods Orthane, Conisalus, Tychon, and others such as these. 13

This district was called Adrasteia, and the plain of Adrasteia, according to the custom of giving two names to the same place, as Thebe, and the plain of Thebe; Mygdonia, and the plain of Mygdonia.

Callisthenes says that Adrasteia had its name from King Adrastus, who first built the temple of Nemesis. The city Adrasteia is situated between Priapus and Parium, with a plain of the same name below it, in which there was an oracle of the Actaean Apollo and Artemis near the sea-shore. ^note On the demolition of the temple, all the furniture and the stonework were transported to Parium, where an altar, the workmanship of Hermocreon, remarkable for its size and beauty, was erected, but the oracle, as well as that at Zeleia, was abolished. No temple either of Adrasteia or Nemesis exists. But there is a temple of Adrasteia near Cyzicus. Antimachus, however, says, There is a great goddess Nemesis, who has received all these things from the immortals. Adrastus first raised an altar to her honour on the banks of the river Aesepus, where she is worshipped under the name of Adrasteia. 14

The city of Parium lies upon the sea, with a harbour larger than that of Priapus, and has been augmented from the latter city; for the Pariani paid court to the Attalic kings, to whom Priapene was subject, and, by their permission, appropriated to themselves a large part of that territory.

It is here the story is related that the Ophiogeneis have some affinity with the serpent tribe (τοὺς ὄθεις.) They say that the males of the Ophiogeneis have the power of curing persons bitten by serpents by touching them without intermission, after the manner of the enchanters. They first transfer to themselves the livid colour occasioned by the bite, and then cause the inflammation and pain to subside. According to the fable, the founder of the race of Ophiogeneis, a hero, was transformed from a serpent into a man. He was perhaps one of the African Psylli. The power continued in the race for some time.