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[3] When they had crossed the river Halys and entered Phrygia, they marched through that country to Celaenae,1 where rises the source of the river Maeander and of another river no smaller, which is called Cataractes; it rises right in the market-place of Celaenae and issues into the Maeander. The skin of Marsyas the Silenus also hangs there; the Phrygian story tells that it was flayed off him and hung up by Apollo.2

1 This implies a considerable divergence to the south from the “Royal road,” for which see Hdt. 5.52. Xerxes here turns south to avoid the difficult route through the Hermes valley, probably; cp. How and Wells, ad loc.

2 The legend of the contest between Marsyas the flute-player and Apollo the lyre-player seems to indicate a change in the national music, the importance of which was more easily understood by a Greek than it is by us.

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load focus Notes (Reginald Walter Macan)
load focus Notes (W. W. How, J. Wells)
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