I907.] AND CONTRACTION OF THE EARTH. 259 



and was scarcely able to reach Lipari with the rest, and they had fits like an 

 epileptic person, at one time fainting and giddy, and at another returning 

 to their senses; and many days afterwards a mud or clay was observed 

 rising in the sea, and in many parts the flames issued, and smoke and smoky 

 blazes ; afterwards it congealed and' became a rock like mill-stones. Titus 

 Flaminus, who then commanded in Sicily, despatched to the senate (of 

 Rome) a full account of the phenomenon ; the senate sent and offered sacri- 

 fieces to the infernal and marine divinities both in the little island (which 

 had thus been formed) and the Lipari Islands." 



Strabo mentions (Book viii., Chap, vi., § 19, Vol. II., p. 59) 



the cities enumerated in Homer's Catalogue of Ships (Illiad, ii., 569) 



including ''spacious Helike " {'^XUr^v evpelav). In Book viii., 



Chap, vii., § 2 ; pp. 69-70, he recounts the development of Achaian 



power, and say they began in the time of Pyrrhus with four cities : 



" They then had an accession of the twelve cities, with the exception of 

 Olenus and Helice; the former refused to join the league; the other was 

 swallowed up by the waves. 



" For the sea was raised to a great height by an earthquake, and over- 

 whelmed both Helice and the temple of the Heliconian Neptune, whom the 

 lonians still hold in great veneration, and offer sacrifices to his honour. 

 They celebrate at that spot the Panionian festival. According to the con- 

 jecture of some persons. Homer refers to these sacrifices in these lines, 

 " * But he breathed out his soul, and bellowed, as a bull 



Bellows when he is dragged round the altar of the Heliconian king.' 



"It is conjectured that the age of the poet is later than the migration 

 of the Ionian colony, because he mentions the Panionian sacrifices, which 

 the lonians perform in honour of the Heliconian Neptune in the territory 

 of Priene ; for the Prienians themselves are said to have come from Helice ; a 

 young man also of Priene is appointed to preside as king at these sacri- 

 fices, and to superintend the celebration of the sacred rites. A still stronger 

 proof is adduced from what is said by the poet respecting the bull, for the 

 lonians suppose, that sacrifice is performed with favorable omen, when the 

 bull bellows at the instant that he is wounded at the altar. 



" Others deny this, and transfer to Helice the proofs alleged of the bull 

 and the sacrifice, asserting that these things were done there by established 

 custom, and that the poet drew his comparison from the festival celebrated 

 there. Helice was overwhelmed by the waves two years before the battle 

 of Leuctra. Eratosthenes says, that he himself saw the place, and the ferry- 

 men told him that there formerly stood in the strait a brazen statue of 

 Neptune, holding in his hand a hippocampus, an animal which is dangerous 

 to fishermen. 



" According to Heracleides, the inundation took place in his time, and 

 during the night. The city was at the distance of twelve stadia from the 

 sea, which overwhelmed the whole intermediate country as well as the city. 

 Two thousand men were sent by the Achaeans to collect the dead bodies, 

 but in vain. The territory was divided among the bordering people. This 



