And as one enters the Odeum at Athens, there is a Dionysus and other
things worth seeing. And near is a spring called the Nine Springs
constructed so by Pisistratus: for there are wells all over the city
but this is the only spring. And two temples have been built over the
spring, one to Demeter and the other to Proserpine; in one of them
is a statue to Triptolemus, about whom I will record the traditions,
omitting what is said about Deiope. Now the Argives are those of the
Greeks who chiefly dispute with the Athenians their rival claims to
antiquity, and assert that they have received gifts from the gods,
just as among the barbarians the Egyptians have similar disputes with
the Phrygians. The story goes then that when Demeter came to Argos
Pelasgus received her into his house, and that Chrysanthis, knowing of
the rape of Proserpine, informed her of it: and afterwards Trochilus
the initiating priest fled they say from Argos in consequence of the
hatred of Agenor, and came to Attica, and there married a wife from
Eleusis, and had children by her, Eubules and Triptolemus. This is
the account of the Argives. But the Athenians and neighbouring tribes
know that Triptolemus, the son of Celeus, was the first who sowed
corn in the fields. And it is sung by Musæus, (if indeed the lines
are by Musæus), that Triptolemus was the son of Ocean and Earth, and
it is sung by Orpheus, (if these lines again are by Orpheus, which I
doubt), that Dysaules was the father of Eubules and Triptolemus, and
that Demeter taught them how to sow corn because they had given her
information about the rape of her daughter. But the Athenian Chœrilus,
in the play called “Alope,” says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were
brothers, that their mother was a daughter of Amphictyon, and that the
father of Triptolemus was Rharus, and the father of Cercyon Poseidon.
And as I was intending to go further into the account, and narrate all
things appertaining to the temple at Athens called the Eleusinium, a
vision in the night checked me: but what it is lawful for me to write
for everybody, to this I will turn. In front of this temple, where
is also a statue of Triptolemus, there is a brazen bull being led to
sacrifice, and Epimenides the Gnossian is pourtrayed in a sitting
posture, who is recorded to have gone into a field and entered into a
cave and slept there, and woke not from that sleep till forty years
had rolled by, and afterwards wrote epic poems and visited Athens and
other cities. And Thales, who stopped the plague at Lacedæmon, was no
relation of his, nor of the same city as Epimenides: for the latter was
a Gnossian, whereas Thales is declared to have been a Gortynian by the
Colyphonian Polymnastus, who wrote a poem on him for the Lacedæmonians.
And a little further is the temple of Euclea, (_Fair Fame_), a votive
offering for the victory over the Persians at Marathon. And I think the
Athenians prided themselves not a little on this victory: Æschylus,
at any rate, on his death-bed, remembered none of his other exploits,
though he was so remarkable as a Dramatist and had fought both at
Artemisium and Salamis: and he wrote in the Poem he then composed his
own name and the name of his city, and that he had as witnesses of his
prowess the grove at Marathon and the Persians who landed there.
And beyond the Ceramicus and the portico called _The Royal Portico_
is a temple of Hephæstus, and that a statue of Athene was placed in
it I was not at all surprised at when I remembered the story about
Erichthonius. But seeing that the statue of Athene had grey eyes, I
found that this was a legend of the Libyans, who record that she was
the daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian Marsh, and that therefore
her eyes were grey as those of Poseidon. And near is a temple of
Celestial Aphrodite, who was first worshipped by the Assyrians, and
after them by the Paphians of Cyprus, and by the Phœnicians who dwell
at Ascalon in Palestine. And from the Phœnicians the people of Cythera
learned her worship. And among the Athenians her worship was instituted
by Ægeus, thinking that he had no children, (for he had none then), and
that his sisters were unfortunate, owing to the wrath of the Celestial
One. And her statue is still among us of Parian stone, the design of
Phidias. And the Athenians have a township of the Athmoneans, who say
that Porphyrion, who reigned even before Actæus, erected among them a
temple to the Celestial Aphrodite. But the traditions of townships and
the dwellers in cities are widely different.