Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 3 -- Roman Encyclopedists
Strabo's Geographia notes what may have been a geographical root of Charon.
One comes to a village [in Karia, Asia Minor], the Karian Thymbria, near which is Aornon, a
sacred cave, which is called Charonion, since it emits deadly vapors.
Strabo mentioned that Lake Copais north of the Peloponnese was drained naturally by an
underground channel some 5 kilometers in length which rose again near Larymna.
From Herodotus' Persian Wars (c. 435 BC),
When Cleomenes had sent to Delphi to consult the oracle, it was prophesied to him that he
should take Argos; upon which he went out at the head of the Spartans, and led them to the
river Erasinus. This stream is reported to flow from the Stymphalian lake, the waters of which
empty themselves into a pitch-dark chasm, and then (as they say) reappear in Argos, where the
Argives call them the Erasinus.
Drawing upon this, Strabo described a subterranean connection between the River Stymphalus
(and, by extension, Lake Stymphalus) and the Argive River Erasinus, placing the river's
emergence at a spring between Argos and Lerna. We'll have more to say about the area's
hydrology in Chapter 28, Et In Arcadia Ego.
Strabo stated that at one time the sink was blocked by an earthquake, making the lake much
larger. Citing the authority Eratosthenes (c.275-194 BC), Strabo noted that the sink occasionally
plugged, causing flooding near Pheneus and a flood surge downstream.
During the Battle of Mantinea, 418 BC, the Spartans were said to have flooded the path of their
enemies by diverting the River Sarandapotamos to the bed of the smaller River Zanovistas and
plugging the latter's sinkholes.
In like manner, when Iphicrates was besieging the Spartan town of Stymphalus some years later,
it was said that he attempted to innundate the defenses by blocking the sink with sponges.
The Stymphalus was said by Diodorus of Sicily, writing between 56 and 36 BC, to descend
underground through a sinkhole, flow 32 kilometers through underground passages, and
resurface before emptying into the Gulf of Argos.
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