Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
As you go towards the sea from Pyrrhichus you come to Teuthrone,
which they say was built by Teuthras an Athenian. And of all the gods
they pay most honour to Issorian Artemis, and they have a fountain
called Naia. And a hundred and fifty stades from Teuthrone is the
promontory of Tænarum jutting out into the sea, and the harbours
Achilleus and Psamathus. And on the promontory there is a temple like a
cave, and before it a statue of Poseidon. And some of the Greeks have
represented that it was here that Hercules brought up Cerberus from
the lower world, though there is no underground road leading up to the
cave, nor could one easily believe that the gods have any underground
dwelling, where departed souls congregate. But Hecatæus the Milesian
has a probable legend, that a dreadful serpent called Cerberus was
reared at Tænarum, and that whoever was bitten by it was sure to die,
so venomous was its bite, and this serpent was dragged by Hercules to
Eurystheus. Homer, who first spoke of the dog being dragged from Hades
by Hercules, gave him no name, nor complete description as he did of
the Chimæra.[48] But others afterwards called the dog Cerberus, and
said he was like a dog in all respects except that he had 3 heads,
though Homer said no more that he was the domestic animal called the
dog than if he had called a real serpent the dog of Hades. There are
several works of art at Tænarum, and among others the harper Arion
in brass riding on the dolphin’s back. As to Arion and the dolphin
Herodotus[49] has given the tradition as he heard it in his history
about Lydia. I have myself seen at Poroselene a dolphin so full of
gratitude to a boy, by whom he had been healed of wounds received from
some fishermen, that he was obedient to his call, and carried him on
his back over the sea whenever he wished. There is also a fountain at
Tænarum, which now presents nothing marvellous, but in former times
they say gave to those who looked into it the sight of harbours and
ships. This peculiarity of the water was stopped for all time by a
woman’s washing her dirty linen in it.
About 40 stades’ sail from the promontory of Tænarum is a place
called Cænepolis, which was also formerly called Tænarum. And in it
is a chapel of Demeter, and a temple of Aphrodite near the sea, and a
stone statue of the goddess erect. And 30 stades thence is Thyrides
the topmost peak of Tænarum, and the ruins of the town of Hippola, and
among them the temple of Athene of Hippola, and at a little distance
the town and harbour of Messa. It is about 150 stades from this harbour
to Œtylus. And the hero from whom Œtylus got its name was originally
from Argos, being the son of Amphianax, the son of Antimachus. The most
notable things to see in Œtylus are the temple of Serapis, and a wooden
statue in the market-place of Carnean Apollo.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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