328 ESTIMATES OF MOUNTAINS IN ANTIQUITY. [CHAP.

'lynx-eyed' man), who was noted for his power of sight in
distinguishing distant objects. By Pindar he is
LSnceus.f represented as watching from the summit of Tay-
getus, 'for of all men on the face of the earth he
had the keenest eye'1; and elsewhere we are told that 'he went
to Taygetus, trusting to his speed of foot, and climbed to the
summit, where he overlooked the whole island of Pelops the son
of Tantalus2.' That mountain, as being the highest in the Pelo-
ponnese and rising in the immediate vicinity of Sparta, was
considered to be the natural point of view for a panorama in that
neighbourhood j hence Aristophanes in the Lysistrata makes the
Lacedaemonian woman say that she would mount to the top of
Taygetus to get a sight of peace3. Of Lynceus it is further
related that, when the daughters of Danaus at Argos by the desire
of their father slew their husbands in one night, and Lynceus only
was spared through the fidelity of his wife Hypermnestra, he
escaped to Lyrceia, a town seven miles to the north-westward of
Argos, and from the hill on which it was built displayed a burning
torch, to certify to her that he had reached a place of safety. She
in return, according to their agreement, shewed a corresponding
signal from the Larissa, or lofty citadel of Argos, in token that she
also had escaped from danger4. This story may serve to introduce
to our notice another and more practical aspect from which
mountains were regarded in ancient times, viz. as signalling
stations.

The passage which most readily suggests itself to the mind of
Mountains a scll^ar m this connexion is the famous description

as signalling in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus of the line of fire-
stations. , . .. . . . .

beacons by which the poet imagines Agamemnon to

have transmitted to Clytaemnestra at Argos the news of the capture
of Troy.

e- Ida's top HePhaestus» lord of fire»
schylus, Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,
Beacon to beacon sped the courier flame.
1 Find. Nem* 10. 61—3.
8 Stasinus, Cypria, in Diintzer, Die Fragment* der efiscjien Poesu dor
Gricchen bis zur Zeit Alexanders des Grossest, p. 13.
8 Aristoph. Lysist* 117, 118. 4 Pausan., a. 35. 4*