Description of Greece

Athmonia worships Artemis Amarysia. On inquiry I discovered that the guides knew nothing about these deities, so I give my own conjecture. Amarynthus is a town in Euboea, the inhabitants of which worship Amarysia, while the festival of Amarysia which the Athenians celebrate is no less splendid than the Euboean. The name of the goddess, I think, came to Athmonia in this fashion and the Colaenis in Myrrhinus is called after Colaenus. I have already written that many of the inhabitants of the parishes say that they were ruled by kings even before the reign of Cecrops. Now Colaenus, say the Myrrhinusians, is the name of a man who ruled before Cecrops became king.

There is a parish called Acharnae, where they worship Apollo Agyieus (God of Streets) and Heracles, and there is an altar of Athena Health. And they call upon the name of Athena Horse-goddess and Dionysus Singer and Dionysus Ivy, saying that the plant ivy first appeared there.

The Attic mountains are Pentelicus, where there are quarries, Parnes, where there is hunting of wild boars and of bears, and Hymettus, which grows the most suitable pasture for bees, except that of the Alazones.[*](A people of S. Russia.) For these people have actually bees ranging free, tamely following the other creatures when they go to pasture. These bees are not kept shut up in hives, and they work in any part of the land they happen to visit. They produce a solid mass from which you cannot separate either wax or honey. Such then is its nature.

The Athenians have also statues of gods on their mountains. On Pentelicus is a statue of Athena, on Hymettus one of Zeus Hymettius. There are altars both of Zeus Rain-god and of Apollo Foreseer. On Parnes is a bronze Zeus Parnethius, and an altar to Zeus Semaleus (Sign-giving). There is on Parnes another altar, and on it they make sacrifice, calling Zeus sometimes Rain-god, sometimes Averter of Ills. Anchesmus is a mountain of no great size, with an image of Zeus Anchesmius.