Greek Texts & Translations

seen and heard those who frequent it, conversing about cures performed there. During this feast the young men of the gymnasium and the ephebi, naked and anointed with oil, ^note carry off a bull by stealth at midnight, and hurry it away into the cave. It is then let loose, and after proceeding a short distance falls down and expires. 45

Thirty stadia from Nysa, as you cross the Mesogis to-words the southern parts of Mount Tmolus, ^note is a place called Leimon, or the Meadow, to which the Nysaeans and all the people around repair when they celebrate a festival. Not far from this plain is an aperture in the ground, sacred to the same deities, which aperture is said to extend as far as Acharaca. They say that the poet mentions this meadow, in the words, On the Asian mead, ^note and they show a temple dedicated to two heroes, Caÿstrius and Asius, and the Caÿster flowing near it. 46

Historians relate that three brothers, Athymbrus, Athymbradus, and Hydrelus, coming hither from Lacedaemon, founded (three?) cities, to which they gave their own names; that the population of these towns afterwards declined, but that out of these jointly Nysa was peopled. The Nysaeans at present regard Athymbrus as their founder. 47

Beyond the Maeander and in the neighbourhood are considerable settlements, Coscinia ^note and Orthosia, and on this side the river, Briula, Mastaura, ^note Acharaca, and above the city on the mountain, Aroma; the letter o is shortened in the pronunciation. From this latter place is obtained the Aromeus, the best Mesogitian wine. 48

Among illustrious natives of Nysa were Apollonius the Stoic philosopher, the most eminent of the disciples of Panaetius, and of Menecrates, the disciple of Aristarchus; Aristodemus, the son of Menecrates, whom, when I was a very young man, I heard lecturing on philosophy, in extreme old ^note