CHAPTER III

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They say Hera for some reason or other was displeased with Zeus and went to Eubœa, and Zeus when he could not appease her went to Cithæron (who ruled at Platæa), who was inferior to no one in ingenuity. He recommended Zeus to make a wooden statue and dress it up and draw it in a waggon with a yoke of oxen, and give out that he intended to marry Platæa the daughter of Asopus. And he did as Cithæron instructed him. And directly Hera heard of it she returned at once, and approached the waggon and tore the clothes of the statue, and was delighted with the trick when she found a wooden image instead of a young bride, and was reconciled to Zeus. In memory of this reconciliation they have a festival called Dædala, because statues were of old called _dædala_. And they called them so I think before the times of Dædalus the Athenian, the son of Palamaon, for he was called Dædalus I take it from his statues, and not from his birth up. This festival is celebrated by the Platæans every seventh year, according to what my Antiquarian guide informed me, but really at less interval: the exact time however between one festival and the next though I wished I could not ascertain. The festival is celebrated as follows. There is an oak-coppice not far from Alalcomenæ. Of all the oaks in Bœotia the roots of these are the finest. When the Platæans come to this oak-coppice, they place there portions of boiled meat. And they do not much trouble themselves about other birds, but they watch crows very carefully, for they frequent the place, and if one of them seizes a piece of meat they watch what tree it sits upon. And on whatever tree it perches, they carve their wooden image, called _dædalum_, from the wood of this tree. This is the way the Platæans privately celebrate their little festival Dædala: but the great festival of Dædala is a festival for all Bœotia and celebrated every sixth year; for that was the interval during which the festival was discontinued when the Platæans were in exile. And 14 wooden statues are provided by them every year for the little festival Dædala, which the following draw lots for, the Platæans, the Coronæans, the Thespians, the Tanagræans, the Chæroneans, the Orchomenians, the Lebadeans, and the Thebans: for they thought fit to be reconciled with the Platæans, and to join their gathering, and to send their sacrifice to the festival, when Cassander the son of Antipater restored Thebes. And all the small towns which are of lesser note contribute to the festival. They deck the statue and take it to the Asopus on a waggon, and place a bride on it, and draw lots for the order of the procession, and drive their waggons from the river to the top of Cithæron, where an altar is prepared for them constructed in the following manner. They get square pieces of wood about the same size, and pile them up one upon one another as if they were making a stone building, and raise it to a good height by adding firewood. The chief magistrates of each town sacrifice a cow to Hera and a bull to Zeus, and they burn on the altar all together the victims (full of wine and incense) and the wooden images, and private people offer their sacrifices as well as the rich, only they sacrifice smaller animals as sheep, and all the sacrifices are burnt together. And the fire consumes the altar as well as the sacrifices, the flame is prodigious and visible for an immense distance. And about 15 stades lower than the top of the mountain where they build this altar is a cave of the Nymphs of Mount Cithæron, called Sphragidion, where tradition says those Nymphs prophesied in ancient times.

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