Note 140 — BOOK XXV

The notices are put up at the three places visited yearly by great numbers, and by many separate pilgrims. It is interesting to notice the persistence in a custom common from the earliest times, at any rate as far as Delos and Delphi are concerned. Iton was in Thessaly, and the temple and oracle of Athena there was celebrated throughout Greece, and was the central place of worship for the Thessalians. The town stood in a rich plain on the river Cuarius, and hence its name—sometimes written Siton—was connected by some with σιτόφορος, “corn-bearing” (Steph. Byz.) Homer calls it μητέρα μήλων, “mother of sheep.” Pyrrhus hung up in this temple the spoils of Antigonus and his Gallic soldiers about B. C. 273. [Pausan. 1, 13, 2]. “Itonian Athena” had temples in other parts of Greece also, e.g. in Boeotia [Paus. 9, 34, 1].