LP0056 - Thebes & Thespius - Legends of Boetia, from Pausanias' Description of Greece

Legendary Passages #0056 - Thebes & Thespius - Legends of Boetia, from Pausanias' Description of Greece. Last time we reviewed various fables of Heracles. This time we finish our section on him and cover several myths of Boetia, including Thebes, the Cabeirium, Mt. Phix, Onchestus, and Thespiae. Near the Neistan Gate of Thebes is an image of Heracles the Nose-docker, commemorating his infamous attack on the Minyans. The Cabeirium is a sanctuary near a grove of Demeter; its peoples have long histories. Nearby is a sanctuary of Heracles, commemorating his taking of the horses from the army of Orchomenus. Mt. Phix is where the Sphinx originated. She was either the leader of a pirate fleet based there on the mountain, or one of the children of Laius by concubines and slew all of her brothers, save Oedipus. Thespiae lies at the foot of Mt. Helicon, and was named after a daughter of Asopus, or Thespius of Athens. They worship Love most of all. Heracles lay with the fifty daughters of Thestius, save one, and they all bore him sons. Next time we begin a new section on the stories of Laius and his son Oedipus. http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html#7 Thebes & Thespius, a Legendary Passage, from Pausanias' Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones. [9.25.4] - [9.27.8] Along the road from the Neistan gate are three sanctuaries. There is a sanctuary of Themis, with an image of white marble; adjoining it is a sanctuary of the Fates, while the third is of Zeus of the Market. Zeus is made of stone; the Fates have no images. A little farther off in the open stands Heracles, surnamed Nose-docker; the reason for the name is, as the Thebans say, that Heracles cut off the noses, as an insult, of the heralds who came from Orchomenus to demand the tribute. THE CABEIRIUM Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from this grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother. But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri; and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, one of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri. At the time of the invasion of the Epigoni and the taking of Thebes, the Cabeiri were expelled from their homes by the Argives and the rites for a while ceased to be performed. But they go on to say that afterwards Pelarge, the daughter of Potnieus, and Isthmiades her husband established the mysteries here to begin with, but transferred them to the place called Alexiarus. But because Pelarge conducted the initiation outside the ancient borders, Telondes and those who were left of the clan of the Cabeiri returned again to Cabeiraea. Various honors were to be established for Pelarge by Telondes in accordance with an oracle from Dodona, one being the sacrifice of a pregnant victim. The wrath of the Cabeiri no man may placate, as has been proved on many occasions. For certain private people dared to perform in Naupactus the ritual just as it was done in Thebes, and soon afterwards justice overtook them. Then, again, certain men of the army of Xerxes left behind with Mardonius in Boeotia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, perhaps in the hope of great wealth, but rather, I suspect, to show their contempt of its gods; all these immediately were struck with madness, and flung themselves to their deaths into the sea or from the tops of precipices. Again, when Alexander after his victory wasted with fire all the Thebaid, including Thebes