Book 4
36.4
Eryx too, who was reigning then in Sicily, plainly had so violent a desire for the cattle from Erytheia that he wrestled with Heracles, staking his kingdom on the match against these cattle. As Homer says in the Iliad,Hom. Il. 11.244 a hundred kine were the first of the bride gifts paid by Iphidamas the son of Antenor to his bride's father. This confirms my argument that the men of those days took the greatest pleasure in cattle.
36.5
But the cattle of Neleus were pastured for the most part across the border, I think. For the country of the Pylians in general is sandy and unable to provide so much grazing. Homer testifies to this, when he mentions Nestor, always adding that he was king of sandy Pylos.
36.6
The island of Sphacteria lies in front of the harbor just as Rheneia off the anchorage at Delos. It seems that places hitherto unknown have been raised to fame by the fortunes of men. For Caphereus in Euboea is famous since the storm that here befell the Greeks with Agamemnon on their voyage from Troy. Psyttaleia by Salamis we know from the destruction of the Persians there. In like manner the Lacedaemonian reverse made Sphacteria known to all mankind. The Athenians dedicated a bronze statue of Victory also on the acropolis as a memorial of the events at Sphacteria.
