16
There are other stones which are found in this river, called kollotes, which the swallows picking up against the time that Nilus overflows, build up the wall which is called the Chelidonian wall, which restrains the inundation of the water and will not suffer the country to be injured by the fury of the flood;—as Thrasyllus tells us in his Relation of Egypt.
16
Upon this river lies the mountain Argyllus, so called for this reason.
16
Jupiter in the heat of his amorous desires ravished away the Nymph Arge from Lyctus, a city of Crete, and then carried her to a mountain of Egypt called Argillus, and there begat a son, whom he named Dionysus (or Bacchus); who, growing up to years of manhood, in honor of his mother called the hill Argillus; and then mustering together an army of Pans and Satyrs, first conquered the Indian’s, and then subduing Spain, left Pan behind him there, the chief commander and governor of those places. Pan by his own name called that country Pania, which was afterward by his posterity called Spania;—as Sosthenes relates in the Thirteenth Book of Iberian Relations.
XVII. EUROTAS.
17
HIMERUS, the son of the Nymph Taygete and Lacedaemon, through the anger of offended Venus, at a revelling that lasted all night, deflowered his sister Cleodice, not knowing what he did. But the next day being informed of the truth of the matter, he laid it so to heart, that through excess of grief he flung himself into the river Marathon, which from thence was called Himeros; but after that Eurotas, upon this occasion.
17
The Lacedaemonians being at war with the Athenians, and staying for the full moon, Eurotas their captain-general, despising all religion, would needs fight his enemies,. though at the same time he was warned by thunder and’ lightning. However, having lost his army, the ignominy of his loss so incessantly perplexed him, that he flung himself into the river Himerus, which from that accident was afterwards called Eurotas.
