Book 14
2.7
These Telchines are called by some writers charmers and enchanters, who besprinkle animals and plants, with a view to destroy them, with the water of the Styx, mingled with sulphur. Others on the contrary say, that they were persons who excelled in certain mechanical arts, and that they were calumniated by jealous rivals, and thus acquired a bad reputation; that they came from Crete, and first landed at Cyprus, and then removed to Rhodes. They were the first workers in iron and brass, and were the makers of Saturn’s scythe.
2.7
I have spoken of them before, but the variety of fables which are related of them induces me to resume their history, and to supply what may have been omitted.
2.8
After the Telchines, the HeliadaeThat is, Children of the Sun. They were seven in number, Cercaphus, Actis, Macareus, Tenages, Triopes, Phaethon, and Ochimus, born of the Sun and of a nymph, or, according to others, of a heroine named Rhodus. were said, according to fabulous accounts, to have occupied the island. One of these Heliadae, Cercaphus, and his wife Cydippe had children, who founded the cities called after their names— Lindus, Ialysus, and the white Cameirus.Il. ii. 656. Others say, that Tlepolemus founded them, and gave to them the names of some of the daughters of Danaüs.
2.9
The present city was built during the Peloponnesian war, by the same architect,Hippodamus of Miletus. it is said, who built the Piraeus. The Piraeus, however, does not continue to exist, having formerly sustained injuries from the Lacedaemonians, who threw down the walls, and then from Sylla, the Roman general.
