9.33.1 In Haliartos too there is the tomb of Lysander and a hero-shrine of Kekrops the son of Pandion. Mount Tilphousios and the spring called Tilphousa are about fifty stadium-lengths away from Haliartos. The Greeks declare that the Argives, along with the sons of Polyneikes, after capturing Thebes, were bringing Teiresias and some other of the spoil to the god at Delphi, when Teiresias, being thirsty, drank by the wayside of the Tilphousa, and forthwith gave up his breath-of-life [psūkhē]; his tomb [taphos] is next to the spring [pēgē].

9.33.2 They say that the daughter of Teiresias was given to Apollo by the Argives, and at the command of the god crossed with ships to the Kolophonian land in what is now called Ionia. Manto there married Rhakios, a Cretan. The rest of the history of Teiresias is known to all as a tradition: the number of years it is recorded that he lived, how he changed from a woman to a man, and that Homer in the Odyssey^* represents Teiresias as the only one in Hades who is conscious [sunetos].

9.33.3 At Haliartos there is in the open a sanctuary of the goddesses they call Praxidikai [those who exact dikē ‘punishment’]. Here they swear, but they do not make the oath rashly. The sanctuary of the goddesses is near Mount Tilphousios. In Haliartos are temples, with no images inside, and without roofs. I could not discover either to whom these temples were built.

9.33.4 In the land of Haliartos there is a river Lophis. It is said that the land was originally arid and without water, so that one of the rulers came to Delphi and asked in what way they would find water in the land. The Pythian priestess, they say, commanded him to kill the man who should first meet him on his return to Haliartos. On his arrival he was met by his son Lophis, and at once struck down the youth with his sword. Still living, the boy ran about, and where the blood ran water rose up from the earth. And so, the river is called Lophis.

9.33.5 Alalkomenai is a small village [kōmē], and it lies at the very foot of a mountain of no great height. Its name, some say, is derived from Alalkomeneus, an aboriginal [autokhthōn], by whom Athena was brought up; others declare that Alalkomeniā was one of the daughters of Ogygos. At some distance from the village [kōmē] on the level ground has been made a temple [nāos] of Athena with an ancient statue [agalma] of ivory.

9.33.6 Sulla’s treatment of the Athenians was savage and foreign to the Roman character, but quite consistent with his treatment of Thebes and Orkhomenos. But in Alalkomenai he added yet another to his crimes by robbing the statue [agalma] of Athena itself. After these mad outrages against the Greek cities and the gods of the Greeks he was attacked by the most foul of diseases. He broke out with an infestation of lice, and what was formerly accounted his good fortune came to such an end. The sanctuary [hieron] at Alalkomenai, deprived of the goddess [theos feminine], was hereafter neglected.

9.33.7 In my time yet another incident added to the ruin of the temple [nāos]. A large and strong growth of ivy over it loosened the stones from their joints [harmoniai] and tore them apart. Here too there flows a river, a small torrent. They call it Tritōn, because the story is that beside a river Tritōn Athena was reared, the implication being that the Tritōn was this and not the river in Libya, which flows into the Libyan sea out of lake Tritōnis.