immortal gods, who have sprung from Tritonian Thebes. As
yet all the stars that wheel in the heaven were not, nor yet, though one
should inquire, could aught be heard of the sacred race of the Danai.
Apidanean Arcadians alone existed, Arcadians who lived even before the
moon, it is said, eating acorns on the hills; nor at that time was the
Pelasgian land ruled by the glorious sons of Deucalion, in the days when
Egypt, mother of men of an older time, was called the fertile
Morning-land, and the river fair-flowing Triton, by which all the
Morning-land is watered; and never does the rain from Zeus moisten the
earth; but from the flooding of the river abundant crops spring up. From
this land, it is said, a king[1] made his way all round through the
whole of Europe and Asia, trusting in the might and strength and courage
of his people; and countless cities did he found wherever he came,
whereof some are still inhabited and some not; many an age hath passed
since then. But Aea abides unshaken even now and the sons of those men
whom that king settled to dwell in Aea. They preserve the writings of
their fathers, graven on pillars, whereon are marked all the ways and
the limits of sea and land as ye journey on all sides round. There is a
river, the uttermost horn of Ocean, broad and exceeding deep, that a
merchant ship may traverse; they call it Ister and have marked it far
off; and for a while it cleaves the boundless tilth alone in one stream;
for beyond the blasts of the north wind, far off in the Rhipaean
mountains, its springs burst forth with a roar. But when it enters the
boundaries of the Thracians and Scythians, here, dividing its stream
into two, it sends its waters partly into the Ionian sea,[2] and partly
to the south into a deep gulf that bends upwards from the Trinacrian
sea, that sea which lies along your land, if indeed Achelous flows forth
from your land."

[Footnote 1: The allusion is to Sesostris, see Herod, ii. 102 foll.]

[Footnote 2: Or, reading [Greek: hemeteren], "into our sea." The Euxine
is meant in any case and the word Ionian is therefore wrong.]

Thus he spake, and to them the goddess granted a happy portent, and all
at the sight shouted approval, that this was their appointed path. For
before them appeared a trail of heavenly light, a sign where they might
pass. And gladly they left behind there the son of Lycus and with canvas
outspread sailed over the sea, with their eyes on the Paphlagonian
mo