CHAP. 23.—THE FUGITIVE STONE. THE SEVEN-FOLD ECHO. BUILDINGS ERECTED WITHOUT THE USE OF NAILS.
In the same city also, there is a stone, known as the “Fugitive Stone;”2617 the Argonautæ, who used it for the purposes of an anchor, having left it there. This stone having repeatedly taken flight from the Prytanæum,2618 the place so called where it is kept, it has been fastened down with lead. In this city also, near the gate which is known as the “Trachia,”2619 there are seven towers, which repeat a number of times all sounds that are uttered in them. This phenomenon, to which the name of “Echo,” has been given by the Greeks, depends upon the peculiar conformation of localities, and is produced in valleys more particularly. At Cyzicus, however, it is the effect of accident only; while at Olympia, it is produced by artificial means, and in a very marvellous manner; in a portico there, which is known as the “Heptaphonon,”2620 from the circumstance that it returns the sound of the voice seven times.
At Cyzicus, also, is the Buleuterium,2621 a vast edifice, constructed without a nail of iron; the raftering being so contrived as to admit of the beams being removed and replaced without the use of stays. A similar thing, too, is the case with the Sublician Bridge2622 at Rome; and this by enactment, on religious grounds, there having been such difficulty experienced in breaking it down when Horatius Cocles”2623 defended it.