Description of Greece

​But the Dead Sea experiences the opposite of all other water: for in it living things by nature float without swimming, but dying things go to the bottom. For this reason the lake is also barren of fish; since they flee back to their own water from the most obvious danger. And another water in Ionia experiences the same thing as the Alpheius; the spring of this water is on Mount Mycale, and passing through the sea in between, it rises again near Branchidae at the harbor called Panormus.

​These things, then, are as has been said. But as to the Olympic games, those of the Eleans who remember the most ancient things say that Cronus first held the kingship in heaven, and that a temple was made for Cronus in Olympia by the men of that time, who were called the Golden Race; and that when Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of the child to the Idaean Dactyls, who are also called by these same names, the Curetes; and that they came from Cretan Ida, namely, Heracles, Paeonaeus, Epimedes, Iasius, and Idas;

​and that Heracles playing—for indeed he was the oldest in age—pitted his brothers against each other in a running race, and crowned the victor among them with a branch of wild olive; and that they had the wild olive in such abundance that they strewed its still green leaves under themselves as they slept. And they say that the wild olive was brought from the land of the Hyperboreans by Heracles to the Greeks, and that these are men who dwell beyond the North Wind.

​Olen the Lycian was the first to compose in his hymn to Achaia that Achaia came to Delos from these Hyperboreans; and afterwards Melanopus of Cyme sang a song to Opis and Hecaerge, that these also had come to Delos from the Hyperboreans even before Achaia.

​And Aristeas of Proconnesus—for he too made mention of the Hyperboreans—might perhaps have learned even more about them from the Issedones, whom he says in his epic verses that he visited. To Heracles the Idaean, therefore, belongs the reputation of having been the first to arrange the games at that time and to give them the name Olympics; so he established that it should be held every fifth year, because he himself and his brothers were five in number.

​Indeed, some say that Zeus wrestled here with Cronus himself for the sovereignty, but others say that he held the games upon his victory; and others are said to have won victories, and in particular that Apollo outran Hermes in competition, and defeated Ares in boxing. For this reason, they say, the Pythian flute-playing was introduced for the jump of the pentathletes, since the flute-playing was sacred to Apollo, and Apollo had won Olympic victories.