ALPHE'IUS (now Rufea, Rufla, or Rofiii) is the chief river of Peloponnesus (Mores), rising in the s.e. of Arcadia. and flowing w. through Elis, and past the famous Olympia, into the Ionic sea. This river is one of the most celebrated in ancient song, and is con nected with a beautiful and characteristic Greek legend. The nature of the upper of the A. was calculated to affect strongly the imagination of the Greeks. In its passage through Arcadia, a country consisting of cavernous limestone, and abounding in shut-in basins and valleys, it repeatedly disappears under ground and rises again. After these feats, it was capable of anything—even of flowing under the sea—and the Greek colonists of Sicily thought they recognized it in their new country. Close on the margin of the sea in the island of Ortygia (the site of Syracuse), there was a beautiful and copious fountain; and just where the water of this foimtain joined the sea, another strong spring bubbled up under the salt water. 1T11is could only he another
freak of the A.; and it was popularly believed that the sweepings of the temple of after the great festival, r when thrown into the river, reappeared in the springs at .Strabo 'asserts as a fact that a cup did so.
This wonderful phenomenon found its explanation, as usual, in a myth, connecting it with the history of the gods. The river-god Alpheius became enamored of the nymph Arethnsa while bathing in his stream. To escape him, she prayed to Diana, who changed her into a fountain, and opened up an underground passage fo: her to Ortygia. The river still pursued the object of his love, passing from Greece to Sicily below the sea, without mingling his waters with it, and appearing in the spring that bubbles up by the shore.