Note 746 — OMPHI,

I have taken notice of several cities called Omphalian, and have observed, that they generally had oracular temples: but by the Greeks they were universally supposed to have been denominated from a navel. There was a place called [746]Omphalian in Thessaly: and another in Crete, which had a celebrated [747]oracle. It is probably the same that is mentioned by Strabo, as being upon mount Ida, where was the city Elorus. Diodorus speaks of this oracle, named Omphalian; but supposes that the true name was ομφαλος, omphalus: and says, that it was so called (strange to tell) because Jupiter, when he was a child, lost his navel here, which dropped into the river Triton: [748]Απο τουτου τοτε συμβαντος Ομφαλον προσαγορευθηναι το χωριον: from this accident the place had the name of Omphalus, or the navel. Callimachus in his hymn to Jupiter dwells upon this circumstance: