17
In this river grows a stone which is shaped like a helmet, called thrasydeilos, or rash and timorous. For if it hears a trumpet sound, it leaps toward the bank of the river; but if you do but name the Athenians, it presently sinks to the bottom of the water. Of these stones there are not a few which are consecrated and laid up in the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House;—as Nicanor the Samian relates in his Second Book of Rivers.
17
Near to this river lies the mountain Taygetus, deriving its name from the nymph Taygete; who, after Jupiter had deflowered her, being overcome by grief, ended her days by hanging at the summit of the mountain Amyclaeus, which from thence was called Taygetus.
17
Upon this mountain grows a plant called Charisia, which the women at the beginning of the spring tied about their necks, to make themselves more passionately beloved by men;—as Cleanthes reports in his First Book of Mountains. But Sosthenes the Cnidian is more accurate in the relation of these things, from whom Hermogenes borrowed the subject of his writing.
XVIII. INACHUS.
18
INACHUS is a river in the territories of Argos, formerly called Carmanor. Afterwards Haliacmon, for this reason.
18
Haliacmon, a Tirynthian by birth, while he kept sheep upon the mountain Coccygium, happened against his will to see Jupiter and Rhea sporting together; for which being struck mad, and hurried by the violence of the frenzy, he flung himself into the river Carmanor, which after that was called Haliacmon. Afterwards it was called Inachus upon this occasion.
18
Inachus, the son of Oceanus, after that Jupiter had deflowered his daughter Io, pursued the Deity close at the heels, abusing and cursing him all the way as he went. Which so offended Jupiter, that he sent Tisiphone, one of the Furies, who haunted and plagued him to that degree, that he flung himself into the river Haliacmon, afterwards called by his own name Inachus.
