And after having advanced from Lycuria about 50 stades you will come
to the springs of the river Ladon. I have heard that the water of the
marsh at Pheneus, after falling into the pits under the mountains,
reappears here, and forms the springs of Ladon. I am not prepared to
say whether this is so or not. But the river Ladon excels all the
rivers in Greece for the beauty of its stream, and is also famous
in connection with what poets have sung about Daphne. The tradition
current about Daphne among those who live on the banks of the Orontes
I pass over, but the following is the tradition both in Arcadia and
Elis. Œnomaus the ruler at Pisa had a son Leucippus who was enamoured
of Daphne, and hotly wooed her for his wife, but discovered that she
had a dislike to all males. So he contrived the following stratagem.
He let his hair grow to the Alpheus,[30] and put on woman’s dress and
went to Daphne with his hair arranged like a girl’s, and said he was
the daughter of Œnomaus, and would like to go a hunting with Daphne.
And being reckoned a girl, and excelling all the other girls in the
lustre of his family and skill in hunting, and paying the greatest
possible attention to Daphne, he soon won her strong friendship. But
they who sing of Apollo’s love for Daphne add that Apollo was jealous
of Leucippus’ happiness in love. So when Daphne and the other maidens
desired to bathe in the Ladon and swim about, they stripped Leucippus
against his will, and discovering his sex they stabbed him and killed
him with javelins and daggers. So the story goes.