In this respect Timaeus, while making a great parade of accuracy, is, in my opinion, wont to be very short of the truth.
So far is he from accurate investigation of the truth by questioning others that not even about matters he has even with his own eyes and places he has actually visited does he tell us anything trustworthy.
This will become evident if we can show that in talking of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> he makes mistaken statements.
For we may almost say that no further evidence of his inaccuracy is required, if as regards the country where he was born and bred and the most celebrated spots in it we find him mistaken and widely diverging from the truth.
He tells us, then, that the fountain of Arethusa in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Syracuse&groupId=994&placeId=1753">Syracuse</a> derives its source from the river Alpheius in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a> which runs through Arcadia and past <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Olympia&groupId=809&placeId=1462">Olympia</a>.
This river, he says, diving into the earth and travelling four thousand stades under the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicilian Sea&groupId=972&placeId=1723">Sicilian Sea</a> reappears in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Syracuse&groupId=994&placeId=1753">Syracuse</a>.
This, he adds, is proved by the fact that once upon a time after heavy rains at the season of the Olympian festival, when the river had flooded the sanctuary,
Arethusa threw up a quantity of dung from the beasts sacrificed at the festival and even a gold bowl which they recognized as coming from the festival and made away with.
Walbank Commentary