23
Heracles! What a lot of Homer you are baling out! Now you have put me in mind of him, I want to show you the tomb of Achilles. Do you see it, there by the seaside?_ Sigeum in Troy is over there, and opposite to it Ajax lies buried on Rhoeteum.
23
The tombs are not large, Hermes. But now show me the prominent cities that we hear of down below, Nineveh, the city of Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleonae, and Troy itself; I remember that I set a great many from that place across the ferry, so that for ten whole years I couldn’t dock my boat or dry her out.
23
As for Nineveh, ferryman, it is already gone and there is nota trace of it left now; you couldn't even say where it was. But there you have Babylon, the city of the beautiful towers and the great wall, which will itself soon have to be searched for like Nineveh. I am ashamed to show you Mycenae and Cleonae, and Troy above all; for I know right well that when you go down-you will throttle Homer for the boastfulness of his poems. Yet they were once flourishing, though now they too are dead; cities die as well as men, ferryman, and, what is more, even whole rivers. In fact, even the grave of Inachus no longer survives in Argos.
23
That for your praises, Homer, and your adjectives — “hallowed,” “wide-wayed”” Troy and “well-built” Cleonae!
24
But while we are talking, who are those people at war yonder, and why are they killing each other?
24
You are looking at the Argives and Spartans, Charon, and over there is the dying general Othryadas, the one who is writing on the trophy in his own blood.Three hundred Spartans fought an equal number of Argives for the possession of Thyreatis. Two Argives and a single dying Spartan survived the fight. The Argives hastened home to report their victory; but the Spartan managed to put up a trophy and write upon it 2 dedication to Zeus in his own blood. Herod. 1,82; Plut. Moral. 306 B.
24
What is their war about, Hermes?
24
About the very plain in which they are fighting.
