9.22.1 Beside the sanctuary of Dionysus at Tanagra are three temples, one of Themis, another of Aphrodite, and the third of Apollo; with Apollo are joined Artemis and Leto. There are sanctuaries of Hermes Ram-bearer and of Hermes called Champion. They account for the former surname by a story that Hermes averted a pestilence from the city by carrying a ram round the walls; to commemorate this Kalamis made an image of Hermes carrying a ram upon his shoulders. Whichever of the youths is judged to be the most handsome goes round the walls at the feast of Hermes, carrying a lamb on his shoulders.

9.22.2 Hermes Champion is said, on the occasion when an Eretrian fleet put into Tanagra from Euboea, to have led out the youths to the battle; he himself, armed with a scraper like a youth, was chiefly responsible for the rout of the Euboeans. In the sanctuary of the Champion is kept all that is left of the wild strawberry tree under which they believe that Hermes was nourished. Near by is a theater and by it a portico. I consider that the people of Tanagra have better arrangements for the worship of the gods than any other Greeks. For their houses are in one place, while the sanctuaries are apart beyond the houses in a clear space where no men live.

9.22.3 Corinna, a woman, and the only person in [the city of] Tanagra who, as-I-have-by-now-discovered [dē], [is known to have] composed [poieîn] [lyric-] songs [noun āisma (in the plural), derived from the verb āidein/aeidein ‘sing’]—this woman has a tomb [mnēma] situated in a conspicuous part of the city [polis] [of Tanagra]. And, in the [public-] gymnasium [of the city] there is a painting [graphē] of her. There she is, Corinna, binding her head with a ribbon to signal the victory she won over Pindar in Thebes by way of a [lyric-] song [noun āisma (in the singular), derived from the verb āidein/aeidein ‘sing’]. It seems to me that she was victorious not only because of her dialect [dialektos]—I say this because she sang [verb āidein/aeidein ‘sing’] not in Doric speech like Pindar, but in whatever speech Aeolians would understand [sun-(h)ienai]—but also because she was, in comparison to other women who existed back then, the most beautiful of them all in her looks, if one is to use-as-evidence [tekmairesthai] the image [eikōn] [of her in the painting on display].

9.22.4 Here there are two breeds of roosters, the fighters and the blackbirds, as they are called. The size of these blackbirds is the same as that of the Lydian birds, but in color they are like crows, while wattles and comb are very like the anemone. They have small, white markings on the end of the beak and at the end of the tail.

9.22.5 Such is the appearance of the blackbirds. Within Boeotia to the left of the Euripus is Mount Messapios, at the foot of which on the coast is the Boeotian city of Anthedon. Some say that the city received its name from a nymph called Anthedon, while others say that one Anthas was despot here, a son of Poseidon by Alcyone, the daughter of Atlas. Just about the center of Anthedon is a sanctuary of the Cabeiri, with a grove around it, near which is a temple of Demeter and her daughter, with images of white marble.

9.22.6 There are a sanctuary and an image of Dionysus in front of the city on the side towards the mainland. Here are the tombs of the children of Iphimedeia and Aloeus. They met their end at the hands of Apollo according to both Homer^* and Pindar,^* the latter adding that their doom overtook them in Naxos, which lies off Paros. Their tombs then are in Anthedon, and by the sea is what is called the Leap of Glaukos.

9.22.7 That Glaukos was a fisherman, who, on eating of the grass, turned into a deity of the sea and ever since has foretold to men the future, is a belief generally accepted; in particular, seafaring men tell every year many a tale about the soothsaying of Glaukos. Pindar and Aeschylus got a story about Glaukos from the people of Anthedon. Pindar has not thought fit to say much about him in his odes, but the story actually supplied Aeschylus with material for a play.