11
Men from Eretria used to inhabit the island of Corcyra. But Charicrates sailed thither from Corinth with an army and defeated them in war; so the Eretrians embarked in their ships and sailed back home. Their fellow-citizens, however, having learned of the matter before their arrival, barred their return to the country and prevented them from disembarking by showering upon them missiles from slings. Since the exiles were unable either to persuade or to overcome their fellow-citizens, who were numerous and inexorable, they sailed to Thrace and occupied a territory in which, according to tradition, Methon, the ancestor of Orpheus, had formerly lived. So the Eretrians named their city Methonê, but they were also named by their neighbours the Men repulsed by slings.
12
Who was Charilla among the Delphians?
12
The Delphians celebrate three festivals one after the other which occur every eight Cf.Moralia, 421 c. years, the first of which they call Septerion, the second Heroïs, and the third Charilla.
12
Now the Septerion seems to be a representation of Apollo’s fight with the Python and the flight to Tempê and pursuit that followed the battle. Cf.Moralia, 421 c. Some indeed affirm that Apollo fled because he desired purification as a consequence of the slaughter he had done, others that he was following the wounded Python as he fled along the road which we now call the Sacred Way, and was only a little late for the monster’s death; for he overtook him when he had just died from the effects of the wound and had been buried by his son, whose name, as they say, was Aix. The Septerion, then, is a representation of these matters or certain matters of a similar nature. Cf.Moralia, 418 a-b; Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 1, for this festival.
12
The greater part of the Heroïs has a secret import which the Thyiads Cf.Moralia, 249 e-f. know; but from the portions of the rites that are performed in public one might conjecture that it represents the evocation of Semele.
