Pausanias (2.17.4) describes a statue in a temple to Hera outside of Corinth:
“The statue of Hera—extraordinarily huge—sits on a throne made of gold and ivory, a work of Polykleitos. She has a crown embossed with Graces and the Seasons and carries in one hand a pomegranate fruit and in the other a scepter. I must pass over the reason for the pomegranate, since the tale is protected by sacred rite. But people say that the cuckoo bird sitting on the scepter is Zeus: because he was in love with Hera when she was a maiden and turned himself into this bird which she hunted to have as a pet. I record this story as much as the others of the gods which I offer incredulously—but I record them still.”
There is likely etymological play here with the pomegranate and the cuckoo bird. Greek for pomegranate seed is κόκκων, κόκκωνος whereas the cuckoo bird is κόκκυξ, κόκκυγος.
Both words have some antiquity. “Cuckoo” appears in Hes. Works and Days, 486: “when the cuckoo cuckoos on the oak tree’s leaves…” (ἦμος κόκκυξ κοκκύζει δρυὸς ἐν πετάλοισι). For pomegranate seeds we also have the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, where Persephone relays the fact that Hades gave her “a pomegranate seed, a honey-sweet food…” (ἔμβαλέ μοι ῥοιῆς κόκκον, μελιηδέ’ ἐδωδήν, 412). And, although the passage is in doubt, pomegranate seeds appear in Solon fr. 40 (†κόκκωνας δὲ† ἄλλος, †ἕτερος δὲ σήσαμα). The line is problematic, but Hesychius reads it as “pomegranate seeds”: κόκκωνες: The seeds of the pomegranate. And also from this the misseltoe.” [κόκκωνες· οἱ κόκκοι τῆς ῥοιᾶς. καὶ ὅθεν ἰξός (Solo fr. 40 B.)]
“Other Indians live near the city Kaspatyrus and the Paktyic country, north of the rest of Indian, and these Indians live most like the Bactrians and are most bellicose. These are the Indians sent for gold in the area made desolate by the sands.
In that desert there are ants who are not quite as large as dogs but are larger than foxes. There are even some of these who have been caught and taken to the Persian king. These ants make their home underground, digging sand the way ants do in Greece—and they are similar in shape—but the sand they carry up is mostly gold.
Indians are sent into the desert for this sand. They yoke three camels together each, tying a female in between two males—the rider sits atop her, and she was harnessed as soon as possible after giving birth. Their camels are no less speedy than horses, but they are better at carrying burdens. I won’t describe what a camel looks like, because the Greeks know these things; but they don’t know this: the rear-legs of a camel have four thighbones and four knees; their genitals are turned back near the tail between their rear-legs.
The Indians use these camel teams and drive toward collecting the gold when the weather is hottest, because this is when the ants are out of sight under the ground. In this part of India, the sun is hottest in the morning and near noon like other places, but right from sunrise until dusk. During this time it burns hotter than in Greece at noon, so the story is that men drip water on themselves during this time. At noon, the sun’s heat is almost the same for the Indians as it is for other people. After noon, the sun has the power it has in the morning in other lands. It cools as it sets, making it very cold at sunset.
When the Indians come to this land with their sacks, they fill them with sand as fast as possible and drive back again. For as soon as the ants smell them, as the Persians report, they chase them. They claim that there is nothing equal to their speed with the result that if the Indians do not start well ahead, none of them will escape. They cut the male camels out because they are slower once they begin to hold back. The females never get tired, because they remember the offspring they have let behind. This is the story. The Persians claim that the Indians gather most of their gold this way. The do get some from their own lands, but rather less.”
Herodotus’ Ants Make B-Movie Gold (from Them!, 1954)
“On the opposite wall are painted Theseus, Democracy and the People. Clearly, this painting shows Theseus as the founder of political equality for the Athenians. In other accounts the story has been popularized that Theseus handed the powers of the state over to the people and that the Athenians lived in a democracy from his time until Peisistratus rebelled and became a tyrant. The majority of people repeat many things which are not true, since they know nothing of history and they believe whatever they have heard since childhood in choruses and tragedy. This is how it is with Theseus who actually was king himself and whose descendants continued ruling for four generations until Menestheus died.”
