Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/178

170 STKABO. CASAUB. 458. powerful gained the victory. This gave occasion to a fable, how Hercules overcame the Achelous in fight, and received in marriage as the prize of his victory, Dei'aneira, daughter of OEneus. Sophocles introduces her, saying, " My suitor was a river, I mean the Achelous, who demanded me of my father under three forms ; one while coming as a bull of perfect form, another time as a spotted writhing serpent, at another with the body of a man and the forehead of a bull." l Some writers add, that this was the horn of Amaltheia, which Hercules broke off from the Achelous, and presented to (Eneus as a bridal gift. Others, conjecturing the truth in- cluded in this story, say, that Achelous is reported to have resembled a bull, like other rivers, in the roar of their waters, and the bendings of their streams, which they term horns ; and a serpent from its length and oblique course ; and bull- fronted because it was compared to a bull's head ; and that Hercules, who, on other occasions, was disposed to perform acts of kindness for the public benefit, so particularly, when he was desirous of contracting an alliance with OEneus, performed for him these services ; he prevented the river from overflow- ing its banks, by constructing mounds and by diverting its streams by canals, and by draining a large tract of the Para- cheloi'tis, which had been injured by the river ; and this is the horn of Amaltheia. Homer says, that in the time of the Trojan war the Echi- nades, and the Oxeiae were subject to Meges, "son of the hero Phyleus, beloved of Jupiter, who formerly repaired to Dulichium on account of a quarrel with his father." 8 The father of Phyleus was Augeas, king of Elis, and of the Epeii. The Epeii then, who possessed these islands, were those who had migrated to Dulichium with Phyleus. 20. The islands of the Taphii, and formerly of the Tele- boa3, among which was Taphus, now called Taphius, were distinct from the Echinades, not separated by distance, (for they lie near one another,) but because they were ranged un- der different chiefs, Taphii and Teleboae. In earlier times Amphitryon, in conjunction with Cephalus, the son of De'io- neus, an exile from Athens, attacked, and then delivered them up to the government of Cephalus. But the poet says that 1 Sophocles, TrachinitE, v. 9. 2 II. ii. 628.