CHAPTER VIII

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And when you have crossed the Asopus, and gone about 10 stades from Thebes, you come to the ruins of Potniæ, among which is a grove to Demeter and Proserpine. And the statues by the river they call the Potnian goddesses. And at a stated season they perform other customary rites, and admit sucking pigs into what are called the Halls: and take them at the same season the year following to Dodona, believe it who likes. Here too is a temple of Dionysus Ægobolus (_Goat-killer_). For in sacrificing to the god on one occasion the people of Potniæ were so outrageous through drunkenness that they even killed the priest of Dionysus: and straightway a pestilence came on them, and the oracle at Delphi told them the only cure was to sacrifice to Dionysus a grown boy, and not many years afterwards they say the god accepted a goat as victim instead. They also shew a well at Potniæ, in which they say if the horses of the district drink they go mad.

As you go from Potniæ to Thebes there is on the right of the road a small enclosure and pillars in it: this it is thought is the place where the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraus, and they add that neither do birds sit on these pillars, nor do animals tame or wild feed on the grass.

At Thebes within the circuit of the old walls were seven gates which remain to this day, and all have their own names. The gate _Electris_ is called from Electra the sister of Cadmus, and _Prœtisis_ from Prœtus, a native of Thebes whose date and genealogy it would be difficult to ascertain. And the gate _Neiste_ got its name from the following circumstance; one of the chords in the lyre is called _nete_, and Amphion discovered this chord at this very gate. Another account is that Zethus the brother of Amphion had a son called Neis, and that this gate got its name from him. And there is the gate _Crenæa_, so called from a fountain. And there is the gate called _Highest_, so called from the temple of Highest Zeus. And the sixth gate is called _Ogygia_. And the seventh gate is called _Homolois_, this is the most recently named gate I think, (as _Ogygia_ is the oldest-named,) and got its name from the following circumstance. When the Thebans were beaten in battle by the Argives at Glisas, most of them fled with Laodamas the son of Eteocles, but part of them shrank from a journey to the Illyrii, and turned aside into Thessaly and occupied Homole, the most fertile and well-watered of all the Thessalian mountains. And when Thersander the son of Polynices restored them to Thebes, they called the gate by which they entered Homolois in memory of Homole. As you go from Platæa to Thebes you enter by the gate Electris, and it was here they say that Capaneus the son of Hipponous, making a most violent attack on the walls, was struck with lightning.[52]

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