Book 8
29.1
After crossing the Alpheius you come to what is called Trapezuntian territory and to the ruins of a city Trapezus. On the left, as you go down again from Trapezus to the Alpheius, there is, not far from the river, a place called Bathos (Depth), where they celebrate mysteries every other year to the Great Goddesses. Here there is a spring called Olympias which, during every other year, does not flow, and near the spring rises up fire. The Arcadians say that the fabled battle between giants and gods took place here and not at Pellene in Thrace, and at this spot sacrifices are offered to lightnings, hurricanes and thunders.
29.2
Homer does not mention giants at all in the Iliad, but in the Odyssey he relates how the Laestrygones attacked the ships of Odysseus in the likeness not of men but of giants,Hom. Od. 10.118 foll. and he makes also the king of the Phaeacians say that the Phaeacians are near to the gods like the Cyclopes and the race of giants.Hom. Od. 7.205 foll. In these places then he indicates that the giants are mortal, and not of divine race, and his words in the following passage are plainer still:—Who once was king among the haughty giants;But he destroyed the infatuate folk, and was destroyed himself.Hom. Od. 7.59-60“Folk” in the poetry of Homer means the common people.
29.3
That the giants had serpents for feet is an absurd tale, as many pieces of evidence show, especially the following incident. The Syrian river Orontes does not flow its whole course to the sea on a level, but meets a precipitous ridge with a slope away from it. The Roman emperorIt is not known who the emperor was, but some suppose that it was Tiberius. wished ships to sail up the river from the sea to Antioch. So with much labour and expense he dug a channel suitable for ships to sail up, and turned the course of the river into this.
