I wish, further, to remind you of what I have done. I have been sent on missions to Thessaly, to Macedonia, to Molossia, to Thesprotia, to Italy, and to Sicily. In the course of them I have reconciled such as had quarrelled with you, others I have won over to friendship, others I have detached from your enemies. If every representative of yours had done the same, you would have few foes, and you would have gained many an ally.
e seven gates and the captains]; now if we can forestall him, you are saved, but if you are too late, we are ruined and you will die.
Menoeceus
Where can I escape? To what city? To which of our guest-friends?
Creon
Where you will be furthest removed from this land.
Menoeceus
It is for you to name a place, for me to carry out your bidding.
Creon
After passing Delphi—
Menoeceus
Where must I go, father?
Creon
To Aetolia.
Menoeceus
And where must I go from there?
Creon
To the land of Thesprotia.
Menoeceus
To Dodona's holy threshold?
Creon
You understand.
Menoeceus
What protection will I find there?
Creon
The god will send you on your way.
Menoeceus
How shall I find the means?
Creon
I will supply you with money.
Menoeceus
A good plan of yours, father. Go now; for I will come to your sister, Jocasta, at whose breast I was suckled when bereft of my mother, a lonely orphan, [to give her greeting and then I will save my life]. Come, come! be going; it isn't your part to hinde
But my own belief about it is this. If the Phoenicians did in fact carry away the sacred women and sell one in Libya and one in Hellas, then, in my opinion, the place where this woman was sold in what is now Hellas, but was formerly called Pelasgia, was Thesprotia;
and then, being a slave there, she established a shrine of Zeus under an oak that was growing there; for it was reasonable that, as she had been a handmaid of the temple of Zeus at Thebes
, she would remember that temple in the land to which she had come.
After this, as soon as she understood the Greek language, she taught divination; and she said that her sister had been sold in Libya by the same Phoenicians who sold her.
ounselled him to slay those of his townsmen who were outstanding in influence or ability; with that he began to deal with his citizens in an evil manner. Whatever act of slaughter or banishment Cypselus had left undone, that Periander brought to accomplishment. In a single day he stripped all the women of Corinth naked, because of his own wife Melissa.Killed by her husband, perhaps accidentally; cp. Hdt. 3.50.
Periander had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead on the river Acheron in Thesprotia to enquire concerning a deposit that a friend had left, but Melissa, in an apparition, said that she would tell him nothing, nor reveal where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The garments, she said, with which Periander had buried with her had never been burnt, and were of no use to her. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven.
When this message was brought back to Periander (for he had had interco
ntain, inaccessible and precipitous, a spur of Oeta; to the east of the road there is nothing but marshes and sea. In this pass are warm springs for bathing, called the Basins by the people of the country, and an altar of Heracles stands nearby. Across this entry a wall had been built, and formerly there was a gate in it.
It was the PhociansIt is to be noted that in 480 the pass of Thermopylae was no longer in Phocian territory. who built it for fear of the Thessalians when these came from Thesprotia to dwell in the Aeolian land, the region which they now possess. Since the Thessalians were trying to subdue them, the Phocians made this their protection, and in their search for every means to keep the Thessalians from invading their country, they then turned the stream from the hot springs into the pass, so that it might be a watercourse.
The ancient wall had been built long ago and most of it lay in ruins; those who built it up again thought that they would in this way bar the foreigne
All these people who live this side of Thesprotia and the Acheron river took part in the war. The Thesprotians border on the Ampraciots and Leucadians, who were the ones who came from the most distant countries to take part in the war. The only ones living beyond these to help Hellas in its danger were the Crotonians, with one ship. Its captain was Phayllus, three times victor in the Pythian games. The Crotonians are Achaeans by birth.
le to Lysimachus, and to Cassander and the army of Seleucus, lost most of his forces, and was himself killed, having suffered most by reason of the length of the war with Eumenes. Of the kings who put down Antigonus I hold that the most wicked was Cassander, who although he had recovered the throne of Macedonia with the aid of Antigonus, nevertheless came to fight against a benefactor.
After the death of Antigonus, Ptolemy again reduced the Syrians and Cyprus, and also restored Pyrrhus to Thesprotia on the mainland. Cyrene rebelled; but Magas, the son of Berenice （who was at this time married to Ptolemy） captured Cyrene in the fifth year of the rebellion. If this Ptolemy really was the son of Philip, son of Amyntas, he must have inherited from his father his passion for women, for, while wedded to Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater, although he had children he took a fancy to Berenice, whom Antipater had sent to Egypt with Eurydice. He fell in love with this woman and had children
until Heracles restored him to the light of day, but the most plausible account I have heard is this. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king, and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peiri eager for the marriage） were taken captive. The Thesprotian king kept them prisoners at Cichyrus.
Among the sights of Thesprotia are a sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Near Cichyrus is a lake called Acherusia, and a river ces that he made bold to describe in his poems the regions of Hades, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus kept in bonds, the sons of Tyndareus marched against Aphidna, captured it and restored Menesth of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea, but he was aware that Theseus, if ever he returned from Thesprotia, would be a doughty antagonist, and so curried favour with his subjects that Theseus on re covering afterwards his libe
to a Roman and a Thracian.
As you descend from here to the lower part of the city, is a sanctuary of Serapis, whose worship the Athenians introduced from Ptolemy. Of the Egyptian sanctuaries of Serapis the most famous is at Alexandria, the oldest at Memphis. Into this neither stranger nor priest may enter, until they bury Apis. Not far from the sanctuary of Serapis is the place where they say that Peirithous and Theseus made their pact before setting forth to Lacedaemon and afterwards to Thesprotia.
Hard by is built a temple of Eileithyia, who they say came from the Hyperboreans to Delos and helped Leto in her labour; and from Delos the name spread to other peoples. The Delians sacrifice to Eileithyia and sing a hymn of Olen. But the Cretans suppose that Eileithyia was born at Auunisus in the Cnossian territory, and that Hera was her mother. Only among the Athenians are the wooden figures of Eileithyia draped to the feet. The women told me that two are Cretan, being offerings of
obe, daughter of Phoroneus. After these comes a temple of the Dioscuri. The images represent the Dioscuri themselves and their sons, Anaxis and Mnasinous, and with them are their mothers, Hilaeira and Phoebe. They are of ebony wood, and were made by Dipoenus and Scyllis.Sixth cent. B.C. The horses, too, are mostly of ebony, but there is a little ivory also in their construction.
Near the Lords is a sanctuary of Eilethyia, dedicated by Helen when, Theseus having gone away with Peirithous to Thesprotia, Aphidna had been captured by the Dioscuri and Helen was being brought to Lacedaemon. For it is said that she was with child, was delivered In Argos, and founded there the sanctuary of Eilethyia, giving the daughter she bore to Clytaemnestra, who was already wedded to Agamemnon, while she herself subsequently married Menelaus.
And on this matter the poets Euphorion of Chalcis and Alexander of Pleuron, and even before them, Stesichorus of Himera, agree with the Argives in asserting that Iph
