“warriors eager to break through breastplates with extended ashen spears.”[588] The missile weapons were perhaps of different kinds, as, probably, was the ashen spear of Pelion, which, as the poet says, “Achilles alone knew how to hurl.”[589] When the poet says, “I strike farther with a spear than any other person with an arrow,”[590] he means with a missile spear. They, too, who engage in single combat, are first introduced as using missile spears, and then having recourse to swords. But they who engage in single combat do not use the sword only, but a spear also held in the hand, as the poet describes it, “he wounded him with a polished spear, pointed with brass, and unbraced his limbs.”[591] He represents the Eubœans as fighting in this manner; but he describes the Locrian mode as contrary to this; “It was not their practice to engage in close fight, but they followed him to Ilium with their bows, clothed in the pliant fleece of the sheep.”[592] An answer of an oracle is commonly repeated, which was returned to the Ægienses; “a Thessalian horse, a Lacedæmonian woman, and the men who drink the water of the sacred Arethusa,” meaning the Chalcideans as superior to all other people, for Arethusa belongs to them. 14. At present the rivers of Eubœa are the Cereus and Neleus. The cattle which drink of the water of the former become white, and those that drink of the water of the latter become black. We have said that a similar effect is produced by the water of the Crathis.[593] 15. As some of the Eubœans, on their return from Troy, were driven out of their course among the Illyrians; pursued their journey homewards through Macedonia, and stopped in the neighbourhood of Edessa; having assisted the people in a war, who had received them hospitably; they founded a city, [CAS. 450] Eubœa. There was a Eubœa in Sicily, founded by the Chalcideans, who were settled there. It was destroyed by Gelon, and became a stronghold of the Syracusans. In Corcyra also, and at Lemnus, there was a place called Eubœa, and a hill of this name in the Argive territory. 16. We have said, that Ætolians, Acarnanians, and Athamanes are situated to the west of the Thessalians and Œtæans, if indeed we must call the Athamanes,[594] Greeks. It remains, in order that we may complete the description of Greece, to give some account of these people, of the islands which lie nearest to Greece, and are inhabited by Greeks, which we have not yet mentioned. CHAPTER II. 1. Ætolians and Acarnanians border on one another, having between them the river Achelous,[595] which flows from the north, and from Pindus towards the south, through the country of the Agræi, an Ætolian tribe, and of the Amphilochians.