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It is the same with Aetolia: there you will find Althaea, Meleager, Atalanta, and the fatal brand; the strife of Achelous with Heracles, the birth of the Sirens, the origin of the Echinades, those islands on which Alcmaeon dwelt after his frenzy was past; and, following these, the story of Nessus, and of Deianira’s jealousy, which brought Heracles to the pyre upon Oeta.
Thrace, too, has much that is indispensable to the pantomime: of the head of murdered Orpheus, that sang while it floated down the stream upon his lyre; of Haemus and of Rhodope; and of the chastisement of Lycurgus.
Thessalian story, richer still, tells of Pelias and Jason; of Alcestis; and of the Argo with her talking keel and her crew of fifty youths; of what befell them in Lemnos;
of Aecetes, Medea’s dream, the rending of Absyrtus, the eventful flight from Colchis; and, in later days, of Protesilaus and Laodamia.
Cross once more to Asia, and Samos awaits you, with the fall of Polycrates, and his daughter’s flight into Persia; and the ancient story of Tantalus’s folly, and of the feast that he gave the Gods; of butchered Pelops, and his ivory shoulder.
In Italy, we have the Eridanus, Phaethon, and his poplarsisters, who wept tears of amber for his loss.
The pantomime must be familiar, too, with the story of the Hesperides, and the dragon that guarded the golden fruit; with burdened Atlas, and Geryon, and the driving of the oxen from Erythea;
