A few hundred yards to the east is the Castalian spring, in the cleft between the lofty Phædriadæ. At one time it was believed to confer the gift of prophecy on those who drank of it; but its rock-hewn basin is now used by the village women for washing clothes. In ancient times its water was used for sacred purposes by the prophetess and her attendants and all who came to consult the oracle. That the purification sought was not merely that of the body may be inferred from a prophetic utterance which has been rendered as follows:-- To the pure precincts of Apollo’s portal, Come, pure in heart, and touch the lustral wave: One drop sufficeth for the sinless mortal; All else e’en ocean’s billows cannot lave. If the traveller pursue his journey a few hours farther to the east, passing the picturesque little town of Arachova, about 2000 feet above the sea, he will reach the ancient Cleft or Triple Way, in a scene of desolate grandeur at the end of a long, deep, narrow valley. It was there that Œdipus, seeking to escape the destiny which had just been announced to him by the oracle, and unaware of his true parentage, met his father Laius, King of Thebes, on his way to Delphi, and in a fit of anger at the unceremonious way in which he was jostled aside by the royal charioteer, slew the aged king and all his attendants save one,--a crime which was the beginning of those many sorrows in his [Illustration: THE ANCIENT QUARRIES ON MOUNT PENTELIKON Of extraordinary interest as the material source of the finest architecture and sculpture of Ancient Greece.] family history which were to be the theme of some of the greatest of the Greek tragedies. Pausanias mentions that the tomb of the murdered men, with unhewn stones heaped upon it, was to be seen at the middle of the place where the three roads met: the modern traveller finds a monument with an inscription which tells how Johannes Megas was killed on the same spot in 1856, in an encounter with a band of brigands, which he was seeking to extirpate. CHAPTER III OLYMPIA AND ITS GAMES