Phasis is a river of Scythia, running by a city of the same name. It
was formerly called Arcturus, deriving its name from the situation of
the cold regions through which it runs. But the name of it was altered
upon this occasion.
Phasis, the child of the Sun and Ocyrrhoe daughter of Oceanus, slew
his mother, whom he took in the very act of adultery. For which being
tormented by the Furies appearing to him, he threw himself into the
river Arcturus, which was afterwards called by his own name Phasis.
In this river grows a reed, which is called leucophyllus, or the reed
with the white leaf. This reed is found at the dawning of the morning
light, at what time the sacrifices are offered to Hecate, at the time
when the divinely inspired paean is chanted, at the beginning of the
spring; when they who are troubled with jealous heads gather this reed,
and strew it in their wives’ chambers to keep them chaste. And the
nature of the reed is such, that if any wild extravagant person happens
to come rashly in drink into the room where it lies, he presently
becomes deprived of his rational thoughts, and immediately confesses
whatever he has wickedly done and intended to do. At what time they
that are present to hear him lay hold of him, sew him up in a sack, and
throw him into a hole called the Mouth of the Wicked, which is round
like the mouth of a well. This after thirty days empties the body into
the Lake Maeotis, that is full of worms; where of a sudden the body is
seized and torn to pieces by several vultures unseen before, nor is it
known from whence they come;—as Ctesippus relates in his Second Book of
Scythian Relations.
Near to this river lies the mountain Caucasus, which was before called
Boreas’s Bed, upon this occasion. Boreas in the heat of his amorous
passion ravished away by force Chione, the daughter of Arcturus, and
carried her to a certain hill which was called Niphantes, and upon her
begot a son whom he called Hyrpax, who succeeded Heniochus in his
kingdom. For which reason the mountain was first called Boreas’s Bed;
but afterwards Caucasus upon this occasion. After the fight of the
Giants, Saturn, to avoid the menaces of Jupiter, fled to the top of
Boreas’s Bed, and there being turned into a crocodile [lay concealed.
But Prometheus] slew Caucasus, one of the shepherds inhabiting that
place; and cutting him up and observing the disposition of his
entrails, he foresaw that his enemies were not far off. Presently
Jupiter appearing, and binding his father with a woollen list, threw
him down to hell. Then changing the name of the mountain in honor of
the shepherd Caucasus, he chained Prometheus to it, and caused him to
be tormented by an eagle that fed upon his entrails, because he was the
first that found out the inspection of bowels, which Jupiter deemed a
great cruelty;—as Cleanthes relates in his Third Book of the Wars of
the Gods.
Upon this mountain grows an herb which is called Prometheus, which
Medea gathering and bruising made use of to protect Jason against her
father’s obstinacy.