Not far from the tomb of Æpytus is Cyllene the highest of the mountains
in Arcadia, and the ruins of a temple of Cyllenian Hermes on the top
of the mountain. It is clear that both the mountain and god got their
title from Cyllen the son of Elatus. And men of old, as far as we can
ascertain, had various kinds of wood out of which they made statues,
as ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, yew, lotus. But the statue of Cyllenian
Hermes is made of none of these but of the wood of the juniper tree.
It is about 8 feet high I should say. Cyllene has the following
phenomenon. Blackbirds all-white lodge in it. Those that are called
by the Bœotians by the same name are a different kind of bird, and
are not vocal. The white eagles that resemble swans very much and are
called swan-eagles I have seen on Sipylus near the marsh of Tantalus,
and individuals have got from Thrace before now white boars and white
bears. And white hares are bred in Libya, and white deer I have myself
seen and admired in Rome, but where they came from, whether from the
mainland or islands, it did not occur to me to inquire. Let this much
suffice relative to the blackbirds of Mount Cyllene, that no one may
discredit what I have said about their colour.
And next to Cyllene is another mountain called Chelydorea, where Hermes
found the tortoise, which he is said to have skinned and made a lyre
of. Chelydorea is the boundary between the districts of Pheneus and
Pellene, and the Achæans graze their flocks on most of it.
And as you go westwards from Pheneus the road to the left leads to the
city Clitor, that to the right to Nonacris and the water of the Styx.
In old times Nonacris, which took its name from the wife of Lycaon, was
a small town in Arcadia, but in our day it is in ruins, nor are many
portions even of the ruins easy to trace. And not far from the ruins
is a cliff, I do not remember to have seen another so high. And water
drops from it which the Greeks call the Styx.
[26] Iliad, ii. 604.
[27] Iliad, xviii. 590-592.