[8] The Inachus1 is one of the rivers, which flows through the Argive territory; there is also another in Argia, the Erasīnus. It has its source in Stymphalus in Arcadia, and in the lake there called Stymphalis, where the scene is laid of the fable of the birds called Stymphalides, which Hercules drove away by wounding them with arrows, and by the noise of drums. It is said that this river passes under-ground, and issues forth in the Argian territory, and waters the plain. The Erasīnus is also called Arsinus. Another river of the same name flows out of Arcadia to the coast near Buras. There is another Erasinus also in Eretria, and one in Attica near Brauron. Near Lerna a fountain is shown, called Amymone. The lake Lerna, the haunt of the Hydra, according to the fable, belongs to the Argive and Messenian districts. The expiatory purifications performed at this place by persons guilty of crimes gave rise to the proverb, ‘A Lerna of evils.’ It is allowed that, although the city itself lies in a spot where there are no running streams of water, there is an abundance of wells, which are attributed to the Danaides as their inven- tion; hence the line, “ the Danaïdes made waterless Argos, Argos the watered.
” Four of the wells are esteemed sacred, and held in peculiar veneration. Hence they occasioned a want of water, while they supplied it abundantly.
1 The Planitza.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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