Posidonius asks, would it not have been better to have rained [CAS. 183] down these stones upon the Ligurians themselves, and thus have destroyed them all, than to make Hercules in need of so many stones? As for the number, they were necessary against so vast a multitude; so that in this respect the writer of the myth seems to me deserving of more credit than he who would refute it. Further, the poet, in describing it as fated, secures himself against such fault-finding. For if you dispute Providence and Destiny, you can find many similar things both in human affairs and nature, that you would suppose might be much better performed in this or that way; as for instance, that Egypt should have plenty of rain of its own, without being irrigated from the land of Ethiopia. That it would have been much better if Paris had suffered shipwreck on his voyage to Sparta, instead of expiating his offences after having carried off Helen, and having been the cause of so great destruction both amongst the Greeks and Barbarians. Euripides attributes this to Jupiter: “Father Jupiter, willing evil to the Trojans and suffering to the Greeks, decreed such things.” 8. As to the mouths of the Rhone, Polybius asserts that there are but two, and blames Timæus[1361] for saying five. Artemidorus says that there are three. Afterwards Marius, observing that the mouth was becoming stopped up and difficult of entrance on account of the deposits of mud, caused a new channel to be dug, which received the greater part of the river into it.[1362] This he gave to the people of Marseilles in recompense for their services in the war against the Ambrones and Toygeni.[1363] This canal became to them a source of much revenue, as they levied a toll from all those who sailed up or down it: notwithstanding, the entrance [to the river] still continues difficult to navigate, on account of its great impetuosity, its deposits, and the [general] flatness of the country, so that in foul weather you cannot clearly discern the land even when quite close. On this account the people of Marseilles, who wished by all means to inhabit the country, set up towers as beacons; they have even erected a temple to Diana of Ephesus on a piece of the land, which the mouths of the rivers have formed into an island. Above the outlets of the Rhone is a salt-lake which they call Stomalimnè.[1364] It abounds in shell and other fish. There are some who enumerate this amongst the mouths of the Rhone, especially those who say that it has seven[1365] mouths. But in this they are quite mistaken; for there is a mountain between, which separates the lake from the river. Such then is the disposition and extent of the coast from the Pyrenees to Marseilles.