Book 10
5.8
And there is Syros (the first syllable is pronounced long), where PherecydesFl. about 560 B.C. the son of Babys was born. The Athenian Pherecydes is later than he.Pherecydes of Leros (fl. in the first half of the fifth century B.C.), often called “the Athenian,” wrote, among other things, a work in ten books on the mythology and antiquities of Attica. The poet seems to mention this island, though he calls it Syria: There is an island called Syria, above Ortygia.Hom. Od. 15.403
5.9
And there is Myconos, beneath which, according to the myth, lie the last of the giants that were destroyed by Heracles. Whence the proverb, “all beneath Myconos alone,” applied to those who bring under one title even those things which are by nature separate. And further, some call bald men Myconians, from the fact that baldness is prevalent in the island.
5.10
And there is Seriphos, the scene of the mythical story of Dictys, who with his net drew to land the chest in which were enclosed Perseus and his mother Danae, who had been sunk in the sea by Acrisius the father of Danae; for Perseus was reared there, it is said, and when he brought the Gorgon’s head there, he showed it to the Seriphians and turned them all into stone. This he did to avenge his mother, because Polydectes the king, with their cooperation, intended to marry his mother against her will. The island is so rocky that the comedians say that it was made thus by the Gorgon.
5.11
Tenos has no large city, but it has the temple of Poseidon, a great temple in a sacred precinct outside the city, a spectacle worth seeing. In it have been built great banquet halls—an indication of the multitude of neighbors who congregate there and take part with the inhabitants of Tenos in celebrating the Poseidonian festival.
