Book 10
24.1
Such was the course of the war. In the fore-temple at Delphi are written maxims useful for the life of men, inscribed by those whom the Greeks say were sages. These were: from Ionia, Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene; of the Aeolians in Lesbos, Pittacus of Mitylene; of the Dorians in Asia, Cleobulus of Lindus; Solon of Athens and Chilon of Sparta; the seventh sage, according to the list of Plato,See Plat. Prot. 343a. the son of Ariston, is not Periander, the son of Cypselus, but Myson of Chenae, a village on Mount Oeta. These sages, then, came to Delphi and dedicated to Apollo the celebrated maxims, “Know thyself,” and “Nothing in excess.”
24.2
So these men wrote what I have said, and you can see a bronze statue of Homer on a slab, and read the oracle that they say Homer received:—Blessed and unhappy, for to be both wast thou born.Thou seekest thy father-land; but no father-land hast thou, only a mother-land.The island of Ios is the father-land of thy mother, which will receive theeWhen thou hast died; but be on thy guard against the riddle of the young children.The inhabitants of Ios point to Homer's tomb in the island, and in another part to that of Clymene, who was, they say, the mother of Homer.
24.3
But the Cyprians, who also claim Homer as their own, say that Themisto, one of their native women, was the mother of Homer, and that Euclus foretold the birth of Homer in the following verses:—And then in sea-girt Cyprus there will be a mighty singer,Whom Themisto, lady fair, shall bear in the fields, A man of renown, far from rich Salamis.Leaving Cyprus, tossed and wetted by the waves,The first and only poet to sing of the woes of spacious Greece,For ever shall he be deathless and ageless.These things I have heard, and I have read the oracles, but express no private opinion about either the age or date of Homer.
