Sagaris is a river of Phrygia, formerly called Xerobates because in
the summer time it was generally dry. But it was called Sagaris for
this reason: Sagaris, the son of Myndon and Alexirrhoe, contemning and
slighting the mysteries of the Mother of the Gods, frequently affronted
and derided her priests the Galli. At which the Goddess heinously
offended, struck him with madness to that degree, that in one of his
raging fits he flung himself into the river Xerobates, which from that
time forward was called Sagaris.
In this river grows a stone, which is called autoglyphus, that is,
naturally engraved; for it is found with the Mother of the Gods by
nature engraved upon it. This stone, which is rarely to be found, if
any of the Galli or gelded priests happen to light upon, he makes no
wonder at it, but undauntedly brooks the sight of a preternatural
action;—as Aretazes reports in his Phrygian Relations.
Near to this river lies the mountain Ballenaeus, which in the Phrygian
language signifies _royal_; so called from Ballenaeus, the son of
Ganymede and Medesigiste, who perceiving his father almost wasted with
a consumption, instituted the Ballenaean festival, observed among the
natives to this day.
In this river is to be found a stone called aster, which from the
latter end of autumn shines at midnight like fire. It is called in the
language of the natives _ballen_, which being interpreted signifies
a king;—as Hermesianax the Cyprian affirms in his Second Book of his
Phrygian Relations.