ANI´GRUS
ANI´GRUS (
Ἄνιγρος:
Mavro-potamó, i. e.
Black River), a small river in the Triphylian Elis, called Minyeius (
Μινυήϊος) by Homer (
Hom. Il. 11.721), rises in Mt. Lapithas, and before reaching the Ionian sea loses itself near Samicum in pestilential marshes. Its waters had an offensive smell, and its fish were not eatable.
This was ascribed to the Centaurs having washed in the water after they had been wounded by the poisoned arrows of Heracles. Near Samicum were caverns sacred to the nymphs
Anigrides (
Ἀνιγρίδες or
Ἀνιγριάδες), where persons with cutaneous diseases were cured by the waters of the river. General Gordon, who visited these caverns in 1835, found in one of them water distilling from the rock, and bringing with it a pure yellow sulphur. The Acidas, which some persons regarded as the Iardanus of Homer, flowed into the Anigrus. (Strab. pp. 344--347;
Paus. 5.5. § § 3, 7, seq. 5.6.3;
Ov. Met. 15.281; Leake,
Morea, vol. i. pp. 54, 66, seq.,
Peloponnesiaca, pp. 108, 110; Ross,
Reisen im Peloponnes, vol. i. p. 105.)
