and as he did so struck him under the ribs with his fingers straight out, and such was the hardness of his nails and the violence of the blow that his hand pierced his side, seized his bowels and dragged and tore them out. Creugas immediately expired. And the Argives drove Damoxenus off the course because he had violated the conditions, and instead of one blow had given several to his antagonist. To Creugas though dead they assigned the victory, and erected to him a statue in Argos, which is now in the temple of Lycian Apollo. CHAPTER XLI. The Phigalians have also in their market-place a mortuary chapel to the 100 picked men from Oresthasium, and annually offer funeral sacrifices to them as to heroes. And the river called Lymax which falls into the Neda flows by Phigalia. It got its name Lymax they say from the purifications of Rhea. For when after giving birth to Zeus the Nymphs purified her after travail, they threw into this river the afterbirth, which the ancients called Lymata. Homer bears me out when he says that the Greeks purifying themselves to get rid of the pestilence threw the purifications into the sea.[43] The Neda rises on the mountain Cerausius, which is a part of Mount Lycæus. And where the Neda is nearest to Phigalia, there the lads of the town shear off their hair to the river. And near the sea it is navigable for small craft. Of all the rivers that we know of the Mæander is most winding having most curves and sinuosities. And next for winding would come the Neda. About 12 stades from Phigalia are hot baths, and the Lymax flows into the Neda not far from that place. And where they join their streams is a temple of Eurynome, holy from remote antiquity, and difficult of access from the roughness of the ground. Round it grow many cypresses close to one another. Eurynome the Phigalian people believe to be a title of Artemis, but their Antiquarians say that Eurynome was the daughter of Oceanus, and is mentioned by Homer in the Iliad as having joined Thetis in receiving Hephæstus.[44] And on the same day annually they open the temple of Eurynome: for at all other times they keep it shut. And on that day they have both public and private sacrifices to her. I was not in time for the festival, nor did I see the statue of Eurynome. But I heard from the Phigalians that the statue has gold chains round it, and that it is a woman down to the waist and a fish below. To the daughter of Oceanus who dwelt with Thetis in the depths of the sea these fish extremities would be suitable: but I do not see any logical connection between Artemis and a figure of this kind.