Himerus, the son of the Nymph Taygete and Lacedaemon, through the anger
of offended Venus, at a revelling that lasted all night, deflowered
his sister Cleodice, not knowing what he did. But the next day being
informed of the truth of the matter, he laid it so to heart, that
through excess of grief he flung himself into the river Marathon, which
from thence was called Himeros; but after that Eurotas, upon this
occasion.
The Lacedaemonians being at war with the Athenians, and staying for
the full moon, Eurotas their captain-general, despising all religion,
would needs fight his enemies, though at the same time he was warned by
thunder and lightning. However, having lost his army, the ignominy of
his loss so incessantly perplexed him, that he flung himself into the
river Himerus, which from that accident was afterwards called Eurotas.
In this river grows a stone which is shaped like a helmet, called
thrasydeilos, or _rash and timorous_. For if it hears a trumpet sound,
it leaps toward the bank of the river; but if you do but name the
Athenians, it presently sinks to the bottom of the water. Of these
stones there are not a few which are consecrated and laid up in the
temple of Minerva of the Brazen House;—as Nicanor the Samian relates in
his Second Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Taygetus, deriving its name
from the nymph Taygete, who, after Jupiter had deflowered her, being
overcome by grief, ended her days by hanging at the summit of the
mountain Amyclaeus, which from thence was called Taygetus.
Upon this mountain grows a plant called Charisia, which the women at
the beginning of the spring tied about their necks, to make themselves
more passionately beloved by men;—as Cleanthes reports in his First
Book of Mountains. But Sosthenes the Cnidian is more accurate in the
relation of these things, from whom Hermogenes borrowed the subject of
his writing.