Araxes is a river in Armenia, so called from Araxus the son of Pylus.
For he, contending with his grandfather Arbelus for the empire, shot
him with an arrow. For which being haunted by the Furies, he threw
himself into the river Bactros, for that reason called Araxes;—as
Ctesiphon testifies in his First Book of the Persian Affairs. Araxes,
king of the Armenians, being at war with his neighbors the Persians,
before they came to a battle, was told by the oracle that he should win
the victory if he sacrificed to the Gods two of the most noble virgins
in his kingdom. Now he, out of his paternal affection to his children,
spared his own daughters, and caused two lovely virgins, the daughters
of one of his nobility, to be laid upon the altar. Which Mnesalces,
the father of the victims, laying to heart, for a time concealed his
indignation; but afterwards, observing his opportunity, he killed
both the king’s daughters, and then leaving his native soil fled into
Scythia. Which when Araxes understood, for grief he threw himself into
the river Halmus, which then was altered and called Araxes.
In this river grows a plant which is called araxa, which in the
language of the natives signifies a virgin-hater. For that if it happen
to be found by any virgin, it falls a bleeding and dies away.
In the same river there is also found a stone of a black color,
called sicyonus. This stone, when the oracle advises the sacrificing
of a human victim, is laid upon the altar of the mischief-diverting
Gods. And then, no sooner does the priest touch it with his knife,
but it sends forth a stream of blood; at what time the superstitious
sacrificers retire, and with howlings and loud ohoning carry the stone
to the temple;—as Dorotheus the Chaldaean relates in his Second Book of
Stones.
Near to this river lies the mountain Diorphus, so called from Diorphus
the son of the Earth, of whom this story is reported. Mithras desirous
to have a son, yet hating woman-kind, lay with a stone, till he had
heated it to that degree that the stone grew big, and at the prefixed
time was delivered of a son, called Diorphus; who, growing up and
contending with Mars for courage and stoutness, was by him slain, and
by the providence of the Gods was transformed into the mountain which
was called Diorphus by his name.
In this mountain grows a tree, not unlike a pomegranate-tree, which
yields plenty of apples, in taste like grapes. Now if any one gather
the ripest of this fruit, and do but name Mars while he holds it in his
hand, it will presently grow green again;—as Ctesiphon witnesses in his
Thirteenth Book of Trees.