LP0054 - The Birds & The Boar - Stymphalus & Erymanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece

Legendary Passages #0054 - The Birds & The Boar -
Stymphalus & Erymanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.

Last time we reviewed the early labors of Heracles. This time we explore the regions of Stymphalus, Alea, Condylea, Psophis, and Mount Erymanthus.

Stymphalus is a land of many legends, including Temenus, the son of Pelasgus; Heracles and the Stymphalian Birds; and a great chasm that floods and drains the Stymphalian plain.

Alea was named after Aleus, son of Apheidas. Condylea, the Strangled Lady, is so named because some children tied a rope around an image of Artemis. Psophis was named after a grandson of Erymanthus, or a daughter of Eryx who had relations with Heracles.

Lastly, Erymanthus was descended from Aristas, Parthaon, Periphetes, and Nyctimus. In the sanctuary of Apollo, the Cumae People claim to still have the tusks of the Eyrmanthian Boar.

Next time, from beginning to end, the complete Fables of Hercules.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5

The Birds & The Boar,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.

[8.22.1] - [8.24.5]

STYMPHALUS

My narrative returns to Stymphalus and to Geronteium, as it is called, the boundary between Stymphalus and Pheneus. The Stymphalians are no longer included among the Arcadians, but are numbered with the Argive League, which they joined of their own accord. That they are by race Arcadians is testified by the verses of Homer, and Stymphalus their founder was a grandson of Arcas, the son of Callisto. It is said that it was originally founded on another site, and not on that of the modern city.

The story has it that in the old Stymphalus dwelt Temenus, the son of Pelasgus, and that Hera was reared by this Temenus, who himself established three sanctuaries for the goddess, and gave her three surnames when she was still a maiden, Girl; when married to Zeus he called her Grown-up; when for some cause or other she quarrelled with Zeus and came back to Stymphalus, Temenus named her Widow. This is the account which, to my own knowledge, the Stymphalians give of the goddess.

The modern city contains none of these sanctuaries, but I found the following notable things. In the Stymphalian territory is a spring, from which the emperor Hadrian brought water to Corinth. In winter the spring makes a small lake in Stymphalus, and the river Stymphalus issues from the lake; in summer there is no lake, but the river comes straight from the spring. This river descends into a chasm in the earth, and reappearing once more in Argolis it changes its name, and is called Erasinus instead of Stymphalus.

There is a story current about the water of the Stymphalus, that at one time man-eating birds bred on it, which Heracles is said to have shot down. Peisander of Camira, however, says that Heracles did not kill the birds, but drove them away with the noise of rattles. The Arabian desert breeds among other wild creatures birds called Stymphalian, which are quite as savage against men as lions or leopards.

These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armour of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.

Whether the modern Arabian birds with the same name as the old Arcadian birds are also of the same breed, I do not know. But if there have been from all time Stymphalian birds, just as there have been hawks and eagles, I should call these birds of Arabian origin, and a section of them might have flown on some occasion to Arcadia and reached Stymphalus. Originally they would be called by the Arabians, not Stymphalian, but by another name. But the fame of Heracles, and the superiority of the Greek over the foreigner, has resulted in the birds of the Arabian desert being called Stymphalian even in modern times.

In Stymphalus there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis, the image being of wood, for the most part gilded. Near the roof of the temple have been carved, among other things, the Stymphalian birds. Now it was difficult to discern clearly whether the carving was in wood or in gypsum, but such evidence as I had led me to conclude that it was not of gypsum but of wood. There are here also maidens of white marble, with the legs of birds, and they stand behind the temple.

Even in our own day the following miracle is said to have occurred. The festival of Stymphalian Artemis at Stymphalus was carelessly celebrated, and its established ritual in great part transgressed. Now a log fell into the mouth of the chasm into which the river descends, and so prevented the water from draining away, and (so it is said) the plain became a lake for a distance of four hundred stades.

They also say that a hunter chased a deer, which fled and plunged into the marsh, followed by the hunter, who, in the excitement of the hunt, swam after the deer. So the chasm swallowed up both the deer and her pursuer. They are said to have been followed by the water of the river, so that by the next day the whole of the water was dried up that flooded the Stymphalian plain. Hereafter they put greater zeal into the festival in honor of Artemis.

ALEA

After Stymphalus comes Alea, which too belongs to the Argive federation, and its citizens point to Aleus, the son of Apheidas, as their founder. The sanctuaries of the gods here are those of Ephesian Artemis and Athena Alea, and there is a temple of Dionysus with an image. In honor of Dionysus they celebrate every other year a festival called Sciereia, and at this festival, in obedience to a response from Delphi, women are flogged, just as the Spartan lads are flogged at the image of the Orthian goddess.

In my account of Orchomenus, I explained how the straight road runs at first beside the gully, and afterwards to the left of the flood water. On the plain of Caphyae has been made a dyke of earth, which prevents the water from the Orchomenian territory from doing harm to the tilled land of Caphyae. Inside the dyke flows along another stream, in size big enough to be called a river, and descending into a chasm of the earth it rises again at Nasi, as it is called. The place where it reappears is called Rheunus; the stream having risen here, hereafter the water forms an ever-flowing river, the Tagus.

The name of the city is clearly derived from Cepheus, the son of Aleus, but its form in the Arcadian dialect, Caphyae, is the one that has survived. The inhabitants say that originally they were from Attica, but on being expelled from Athens by Aegeus they fled to Arcadia, threw themselves on the mercy of Cepheus, and found a home in the country. The town is on the border of the plain at the foot of some inconsiderable mountains. The Caphyatans have a sanctuary of the god Poseidon, and one of the goddess Artemis, surnamed Cnacalesia.

They have also a mountain called Cnacalus, where every year they celebrate mysteries in honor of their Artemis. A little beyond the city is a spring, and by the spring grows a large and beautiful plane tree. They call it Menelais, saying that the plane was planted by the spring by Menelaus, who came to the spot when he was collecting his army against Troy. To-day they give the name Menelais to the spring as well as to the plane.

If I am to base my calculations on the accounts of the Greeks in fixing the relative ages of such trees as are still preserved and flourish, the oldest of them is the withy growing in the Samian sanctuary of Hera, after which come the oak in Dodona, the olive on the Acropolis and the olive in Delos. The third place in respect of age the Syrians would assign to the bay-tree they have in their country. Of the others this plane-tree is the oldest.

CONDYLEA

About a stade distant from Caphyae is a place called Condylea, where there are a grove and a temple of Artemis called of old Condyleatis. They say that the name of the goddess was changed for the following reason. Some children, the number of whom is not recorded, while playing about the sanctuary found a rope, and tying it round the neck of the image said that Artemis was being strangled.

The Caphyans, detecting what the children had done, stoned them to death. When they had done this, a malady befell their women, whose babies were stillborn, until the Pythian priestess bade them bury the children, and sacrifice to them every year as sacrifice is made to heroes, because they had been wrongly put to death.

The Caphyans still obey this oracle, and call the goddess at Condyleae, as they say the oracle also bade them, the Strangled Lady from that day to this.

ROAD TO PSOPHIS

Going up about seven stades from Caphyae you will go down to what is called Nasi. Fifty stades farther on is the Ladon. You will then cross the river and reach a grove called Soron, passing through Argeathae, Lycuntes, as it is called, and Scotane.

Now the road to Psophis passes by way of Soron, which, like other Arcadian groves, breeds the following beasts- wild boars, bears, and tortoises of vast size. One could of the last make harps not inferior to those made from the Indian tortoise. At the end of Soron are the ruins of the village Paus, and a little farther what is called Seirae; this Seirae forms a boundary between Cleitor and Psophis.

PSOPHIS, MYTHICAL HISTORY

The founder of Psophis, according to some, was Psophis, the son of Arrhon, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Aristas, the son of Parthaon, the son of Periphetes, the son of Nyctimus. Others say that Psophis was the daughter of Xanthus, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Arcas.

Such are the Arcadian traditions concerning their kings, but the most accurate version is that Eryx, the despot of Sicania, had a daughter named Psophis, whom Heracles, though he had intercourse with her, refused to take to his home, but left with child in the care of his friend Lycortas, who lived at Phegia, a city called Erymanthus before the reign of Phegeus. Having been brought up here, Echephron and Promachus, the sons of Heracles and the Sicanian woman, changed the name of Phegia to Psophis, the name of their mother.

MT ERYMANTHUS

Psophis is also the name of the Zacynthian acropolis, because the first man to sail across to the island was Zacynthus, the son of Dardanus, a Psophidian who became its founder. From Seirae it is thirty stades to Psophis, by the side of which runs the river Aroanius, and a little farther away the river Erymanthus.

The Erymanthus has its source in Mount Lampeia, which is said to be sacred to Pan. One might regard Lampeia as a part of Mount Erymanthus. Homer says that in Taygetus and Erymanthus . . . hunter . . . so . . . of Lampeia, Erymanthus, and passing through Arcadia, with Mount Pholoe on the right and the district of Thelpusa on the left, flows into the Alpheius.

There is also a legend that Heracles at the command of Eurystheus hunted by the side of the Erymanthus a boar that surpassed all others in size and in strength. The people of Cumae among the Opici say that the boar's tusks dedicated in their sanctuary of Apollo are those of the Erymanthian boar, but the saying is altogether improbable.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5