Strabo, Geography

It contains the temple of Apollo Leucatas, and also the "Leap," which was believed to put an end to the longings of love.“Where Sappho is said to have been the first,
”as Menander says,“when through frantic longing she was chasing the haughty Phaon, to fling herself with a leap from the far-seen rock, calling upon thee in prayer, O lord and master.
”Now although Menander says that Sappho was the first to take the leap, yet those who are better versed than he in antiquities say that it was Cephalus, who was in love with Pterelas the son of Deïoneus. It was an ancestral custom among the Leucadians, every year at the sacrifice performed in honor of Apollo, for some criminal to be flung from this rocky look-out for the sake of averting evil, wings and birds of all kinds being fastened to him, since by their fluttering they could lighten the leap, and also for a number of men, stationed all round below the rock in small fishing-boats, to take the victim in, and, when he had been taken on board,¹ to do all in their power to get him safely outside their borders. The author of the Alcmaeonis² says that Icarius, the father of Penelope, had two sons, Alyzeus and Leucadius, and that these two reigned over Acarnania with their father; accordingly, Ephorus thinks that the cities were named after these.