Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
chapter:
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 8Achapter 8Bchapter 8Cchapter 8Dchapter 9chapter 9Achapter 9Bchapter 9Cchapter 10chapter 10Achapter 10Bchapter 10Cchapter 10Dchapter 10Echapter 10Fchapter 10Gchapter 10Hchapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 16Achapter 16Bchapter 16Cchapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95chapter 96chapter 97chapter 98chapter 99chapter 100chapter 101chapter 102chapter 103chapter 104chapter 105chapter 106chapter 107chapter 108chapter 109chapter 110chapter 111chapter 112chapter 113chapter 114chapter 115chapter 116chapter 117chapter 118chapter 119chapter 120chapter 121chapter 122chapter 123chapter 124chapter 125chapter 126chapter 127chapter 128chapter 129chapter 130chapter 131chapter 132chapter 133chapter 134chapter 135chapter 136chapter 137chapter 138chapter 139chapter 140chapter 141chapter 142chapter 143chapter 144chapter 145chapter 146chapter 147chapter 148chapter 149chapter 150chapter 151chapter 152chapter 153chapter 154chapter 155chapter 156chapter 157chapter 158chapter 159chapter 160chapter 161chapter 162chapter 163chapter 164chapter 165chapter 166chapter 167chapter 168chapter 169chapter 170chapter 171chapter 172chapter 173chapter 174chapter 175chapter 176chapter 177chapter 178chapter 179chapter 180chapter 181chapter 182chapter 183chapter 184chapter 185chapter 186chapter 187chapter 188chapter 189chapter 190chapter 191chapter 192chapter 193chapter 194chapter 195chapter 196chapter 197chapter 198chapter 199chapter 200chapter 201chapter 202chapter 203chapter 204chapter 205chapter 206chapter 207chapter 208chapter 209chapter 210chapter 211chapter 212chapter 213chapter 214chapter 215chapter 216chapter 217chapter 218chapter 219chapter 220chapter 221chapter 222chapter 223chapter 224chapter 225chapter 226chapter 227chapter 228chapter 229chapter 230chapter 231chapter 232chapter 233chapter 234chapter 235chapter 236chapter 237chapter 238chapter 239
This text is part of:
129.
Thessaly, as tradition has it, was in old times a lake enclosed all round by high mountains. On its eastern side it is fenced in by the joining of the lower parts of the mountains Pelion and Ossa, to the north by Olympus, to the west by Pindus, towards the south and the southerly wind by Othrys. In the middle, then, of this ring of mountains, lies the vale of Thessaly.
[2]
A number of rivers pour into this vale, the most notable of which are Peneus, Apidanus, Onochonus, Enipeus, Pamisus. These five, while they flow towards their meeting place from the mountains which surround Thessaly, have their several names, until their waters all unite and issue into the sea by one narrow passage.
[3]
As soon as they are united, the name of the Peneus prevails, making the rest nameless. In ancient days, it is said, there was not yet this channel and outfall, but those rivers and the Boebean lake,1 which was not yet named, had the same volume of water as now, and thereby turned all Thessaly into a sea.
[4]
Now the Thessalians say that Poseidon made the passage by which the Peneus flows. This is reasonable, for whoever believes that Poseidon is the shaker of the earth and that rifts made by earthquakes are the work of that god will conclude, upon seeing that passage, that it is of Poseidon's making. It was manifest to me that it must have been an earthquake which forced the mountains apart.2
1 In eastern Thessaly, west of Pelion. Naturally, with the whole country inundated, the lake would have no independent existence.
2 The correspondence in formation of the two sides of the pass (salients on one side answering to recesses on the other) gives the impression that they were once united and have been violently separated.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Sort places
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Thessaly (Greece) (5)Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Pelion (Greece) (2)
Olympus (Greece) (1)
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
References (36 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, 378
- Cross-references to this page
(16):
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE ARTICLE—ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE PARTICIPLE
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.2
- Harper's, Apidănus
- Harper's, Boebēis
- Harper's, Tempé
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), BOEBE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ONCHESTUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), OSSA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), OTHRYS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PAMISUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PE´LIUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PINDUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TEMPE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THESSA´LIA
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (19):
hide
Search
hide
Display Preferences