Book 9
1.18
The account would be much longer if one should pass in review the early founders of the settlement, beginning with Cecrops; for all writers do not agree about them, as is shown even by the names. For instance, Actice, they say, was derived from Actaeon; and Atthis and Attica from Atthis, the son of Cranaüs, after whom the inhabitants were also called Cranaï; and Mopsopia from Mopsopus; and Ionia from Ion, the son of Xuthus; and Poseidonia and Athens from the gods after whom they were named. And, as has already been said,5. 2. 4. the race of the Pelasgi clearly sojourned here too, and on account of their wanderings were called “Pelargi.”i.e., “Storks” (see 5. 2. 4).
1.19
The greater men’s fondness for learning about things that are famous and the greater the number of men who have talked about them, the greater the censure, if one is not master of the historical facts. For example, in his Collection of the Rivers, Callimachus says that it makes him laugh if anyone makes bold to write that the Athenian virgins “draw pure liquid from the Eridanus,”Authorship unknown (see Callimachus Fr. 100e (Schneider) from which even cattle would hold aloof. Its sources are indeed existent now, with pure and potable water, as they say, outside the Gates of Diochares, as they are called, near the Lyceium;On the different views as to the position and course of the Eridanus at Athens, see Frazer, note on Paus. 1.19.5 but in earlier times there was also a fountain near by which was constructed by man, with abundant and excellent water; and even if the water is not so now, why should it be a thing to wonder at, if in early times the water was abundant and pure, and therefore also potable, but in later times underwent a change? However, it is not permitted me to linger over details, since they are so numerous, nor yet, on the other hand, to pass by them all in silence without even mentioning one or another of them in a summary way.
