was writing, around the end of the first century BC. The Hero of Temesa Pausanias also relates a ghost story which took place in Temesa. It was said that Odysseus was carried down to the shores of Italy and Sicily by storms after the sack of Troy. Temesa was one of the cities he visited. Here one of his sailors got drunk and raped a local woman, for which he was stoned to death by the inhabitants. Odysseus was indifferent to this and sailed away. The stoned man returned as a daimôn called the 'Hero' to kill the inhabitants of Temesa at random. The inhabitants wanted to flee from their city, but the Pythian oracle forbade them to do so. The oracle ordered them to build a temple for the Hero and sacrifice the most beautiful maiden to him every year. This appeased the Hero and stopped the attacks. Just when a maiden was sent to the temple to be sacrificed Euthymus of Locri, a boxer and Olympic victor, arrived at Temesa. He fell in love with the maiden, who swore to marry him if he saved her. Euthymus lay in wait for the Hero in the temple and won the fight. The Hero was driven out and sank in the depths of the sea, Euthymus got married and Temesa was freed from the ghost forever. Strabo gives a shorter version of the same story. In his version, the Hero is Polites, one of the crewmembers of Odysseus. Furthermore, no drunkenness and rape is involved: instead he was "treacherously slain by the barbarians" and collected taxes rather than maidens. Nicholson argues that the story was invented during the time Locri controlled Temesa. Possibly the expulsion of the hero by the Locrian Euthymus served to express the conquest of the city by Locri. References Sources Primary sources Secondary sources Further reading External links More information provided by Italian sources Coin of Temesa Coin of Temesa Colonies of Magna Graecia Former populated places in Italy