Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/60

 52 STRABO. CASAUB. 371. Erasmus. It has its source in Stymphalus in Arcadia, and in the lake there called Stymphalis, where the scene is laid of the fable of the birds called Stymphalides, which Hercules drove away by wounding them with arrows, and by the noise of drums. It is said that this river passes under-ground, and issues forth in the Argian territory, and waters the plain. The Erasmus is also called Arsinus. Another river of the same name flows out of Arcadia to the coast near Buras. There is another Erasinus also in Eretria, and one in Attica near Brauron. Near Lerna a fountain is shown, called Amymone. The lake Lerna, the haunt of the Hydra, according to the fable, belongs to the Argive and Messenian districts. The ex- piatory purifications performed at this place by persons guilty of crimes gave rise to the proverb, " A Lerna of evils." It is allowed that, although the city itself lies in a spot where there are no running streams of water, there is an abundance of wells, which are attributed to the Danaides as their inven- tion ; hence the line, " the Danaides made waterless Argos, Argos the watered." Four of the wells are esteemed sacred, and held in peculiar veneration. Hence they occasioned a want of water, while they supplied it abundantly. 9. Danaus is said to have built the citadel of the Argives. He seems to have possessed so much more power than the former rulers of the country, that, according to Euripides, " he made a law that those who were formerly called Pelasgiotae, should be called Danai throughout Greece." His tomb, called Palinthus, is in the middle of the market- place of the Argives. I suppose that the celebrity of this city was the reason of all the Greeks having the name of Pelasgi- ote, and Dariai, as well as Argives. Modern writers speak of lasidse, and Argos lasum, and Apia, and Apidones. Homer does not mention Apidones, and uses the word apia only to express distance. That he means Peloponnesus by Argos we may conclude from these lines, " Argive Helen ;" * and, " in the farthest part of Argos is a city Ephyra ;" 2 1 II. vi. 623. 3 II. vi. 152.