And the Athenians have various islands not far from Attica, one called
after Patroclus, about which I have already given an account, and
another a little beyond Sunium, as you sail leaving Attica on the left:
here they say Helen landed after the capture of Ilium, so the Island
is called Helena. And Salamis lies over against Eleusis and extends
towards Megaris. The name Salamis was they say originally given to
this island from Salamis the mother of Asopus, and afterwards the
Æginetans under Telamon inhabited the island: and Philæus, the son
of Eurysaces and grandson of Ajax, became an Athenian and handed it
over to Athens. And many years afterwards the Athenians expelled the
people of Salamis, condemning them for having been slack of duty in
the war with Cassander, and for having surrendered their city to the
Macedonians more from choice than compulsion: and Ascetades (who had
been chosen as Governor of Salamis) they condemned to death, and swore
that for all time they would remember this treason of the people of
Salamis. And there are yet ruins of the market, and a temple of Ajax,
and his statue in ebony. And divine honours are to this day paid by
the Athenians to Ajax and Eurysaces: the latter has also an altar at
Athens. And a stone is shown at Salamis not far from the harbour: on
which they say Telamon sate and gazed at the vessel in which his sons
were sailing away to Aulis, to join the general expedition of the
Greeks against Ilium. And the natives of Salamis say that after the
death of Ajax a flower first appeared on their island: white and red,
smaller than the lily especially in its petals, with the same letters
on it as the hyacinth.[8] And I have heard the tradition of the Æolians
(who afterwards inhabited Ilium) as to the controversy about the
arms of Achilles, and they say that after the shipwreck of Odysseus
these arms were washed ashore by the sea near the tomb of Ajax. And
some particulars as to his great size were given me by a Mysian. He
told me that the sea washed his tomb which was on the seashore, and
made entrance to it easy, and he bade me conjecture the huge size of
his body by the following detail. His kneepans, (which the doctors
call _mills_,) were the size of the quoits used by any lad practising
for the Pentathlum. I do not wonder at the size of those who are
called Cabares, who, remotest of the Celts, live in a region thinly
peopled from the extreme cold, for their corpses are not a bit bigger
than Egyptian ones. I will now relate some remarkable cases of dead
bodies. Among the Magnesians at Lethæus one of the citizens, called
Protophanes, was victor on the same day at Olympia in the pancratium
and in the wrestling: some robbers broke into his tomb, thinking to
find something valuable there, and after them came others to see his
corpse: his ribs were not separated as is usual, but he was all bone
from his shoulders to the lowest ribs, which are called by the doctors
_false ribs_. And the Milesians have in front of their city the island
Lade, which breaks off into two little islands, one of which is called
Asterius. And they say that Asterius was buried here, and that he
was the son of Anax, and Anax was the son of Earth: his corpse is
two cubits, no less. The following circumstance also appears to me
wonderful. In Upper Lydia there is a small town called the Gates of
Temenus. Some bones were discovered here, when a piece of cliff broke
off in a storm, in shape like those of a man, but on account of their
size no one would have thought them a man’s. And forthwith a rumour
spread among the populace that it was the dead body of Geryon the son
of Chrysaor, and that a man’s seat fashioned in stone on the hillside
was his seat. And they called the mountain torrent Oceanus, and said
that people ploughing often turned up horns of oxen, for the story goes
that Geryon bred most excellent oxen. But when I opposed their theory,
and proved to them that Geryon lived at Gades, and that he has no known
tomb but a tree of various forms, hereupon the Lydian Antiquarians told
the real truth, that it was the dead body of Hyllus, and that Hyllus
was the son of Earth, and gave his name to the river Hyllus. They said
also that Hercules on account of his former intercourse with Omphale
called his son Hyllus after the same river.