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CHAP. 89.—TREES PLANTED AT ARGOS BY HERCULES: OTHERS PLANTED BY APOLLO. A TREE MORE ANCIENT THAN ATHENS ITSELF.

At Argos1 an olive-tree is said to be still in existence, to which Argus fastened Io, after she had been changed into a cow. In the vicinity of Heraclea in Pontus, there are certain altars called after Jupiter surnamed Stratios; two oaks there were planted by Hercules. In the same country, too, is the port of Amycus,2 rendered famous by the circumstance that King Bcbryx was slain there. Since the day of his death his tomb has been covered by a laurel, which has obtained the name of the "frantic laurel," from the fact that if a portion of it is plucked and taken on board ship, discord and quarrel- ling are the inevitable result, until it has been thrown overboard. We have already made mention3 of Aulocrene, a district through which you pass in going from Apamia into Phrygia: at this place they show a plane upon which Marsyas was hanged, after he had been conquered by Apollo, it having been chosen even in those days for its remarkable height. At Delos, also, there is a palm4 to be seen which dates from the birth of that divinity, and at Olympia there is a wild olive, from which Hercules received his first wreath: at the present day it is preserved with the most scrupulous veneration. At Athens, too, the olive produced by Minerva, is said still to exist.

1 These are fables founded upon the known longevity of trees, which, as Fée remarks, Pliny relates with a truly "infantine simplicity."

2 See B. v. c. 43.

3 See B. v. c. 29.

4 The palm is by no means a long-lived tree.

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load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
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  • Commentary references to this page (2):
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae, 1195
    • Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns, HYMN TO APOLLO
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