PAUSANIAS 8. 1 - 16

DESCRIPTION OF GREECE 8. 1 - 16, TRANSLATED BY W. H. S. JONES

ARCADIA (MYTHICAL HISTORY)

[8.1.1] I. The part of Arcadia that lies next to the Argive land is occupied by Tegeans and Mantineans, who with the rest of the Arcadians inhabit the interior of the Peloponnesus. The first people within the peninsula are the Corinthians, living on the Isthmus, and their neighbors on the side sea-wards are the Epidaurians. Along Epidaurus, Troezen, and Nermion, come the Argolic Gulf and the coast of Argolis; next to Argolis come the vassals of Lacedaemon, and these border on Messenia, which comes down to the sea at Mothone, Pylus and Cyparissiae.

[8.1.2] On the side of Lechaeum the Corinthians are bounded by the Sicyonians, who dwell in the extreme part of Argolis on this side. After Sicyon come the Achaeans who live along the coast at the other end of the Peloponnesus, opposite the Echinadian islands, dwell the Eleans. The land of Elis, on the side of Olympia and the mouth of the Alpheius, borders on Messenia; on the side of Achaia it borders on the land of Dyme.

[8.1.3] These that I have mentioned extend to the sea, but the Arcadians are shut off from the sea on every side and dwell in the interior. Hence, when they went to Troy, so Homer says, they did not sail in their own ships, but in vessels lent by Agamemnon.

[8.1.4] The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However, in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows, and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asius the poet says of him:–

The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountains
Black earth gave up, that the race of mortals might exist. Asius, unknown location.

[8.1.5] Pelasgus on becoming king invented huts that humans should not shiver, or be soaked by rain, or oppressed by heat. Moreover; he it was who first thought of coats of sheep-skins, such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phocis. He too it was who checked the habit of eating green leaves, grasses, and roots always inedible and sometimes poisonous.

[8.1.6] But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak. Some people have followed this diet so closely since the time of Pelasgus that even the Pythian priestess, when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, uttered the following verses:–

In Arcadia are many men who eat acorns,
Who will prevent you; though I do not grudge it you.

It is said that it was in the reign of Pelasgus that the land was called Pelasgia.

[8.2.1] II. Lycaon the son of Pelasgus devised the following plans, which were more clever than those of his father. He founded the city Lycosura on Mount Lycaeus, gave to Zeus the surname Lycaeus and founded the Lycaean games. I hold that the Panathenian festival was not founded before the Lycaean. The early name for the former festival was the Athenian, which was changed to the Panathenian in the time of Theseus, because it was then established by the whole Athenian people gathered together in a single city.

[8.2.2] The Olympic games I leave out of the present account, because they are traced back to a time earlier than the human race, the story being that Cronus and Zeus wrestled there, and that the Curetes were the first to race at Olympia. My view is that Lycaon was contemporary with Cecrops, the king of Athens, but that they were not equally wise in matters of religion.

[8.2.3] For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (Lycos).

[8.2.4] I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability. For the men of those days, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board; the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them – Aristaeus, Britomartis of Crete, Heracles the son of Alcmena, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and besides these Polydeuces and Castor.

[8.2.5] So one might believe that Lycaon was turned into a beast, and Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, into a stone. But at the present time, when sin has grown to such a height and has been spreading over every land and every city, no longer do men turn into gods, except in the flattering words addressed to despots, and the wrath of the gods is reserved until the sinners have departed to the next world.

[8.2.6] All through the ages, many events that have occurred in the past, and even some that occur to-day, have been generally discredited because of the lies built up on a foundation of fact. It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lycaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus, but that the change is not for life; if, when he is a wolf, he abstains from human flesh, after nine years he becomes a man again, but if he tastes human flesh he remains a beast for ever.

[8.2.7] Similarly too it is said that Niobe on Mount Sipylus sheds tears in the season of summer. I have also heard that the griffins have spots like the leopard, and that the Tritons speak with human voice, though others say that they blow through a shell that has been bored. Those who like to listen to the miraculous are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and so they ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood.

[8.3.1] III. In the third generation after Pelasgus the land increased in the number both of its cities and of its population. For Nyctimus, who was the eldest son of Lycaon, possessed all the power, while the other sons founded cities on the sites they considered best. Thus Pallantium was founded by Pallas, Oresthasium by Orestheus and Phigalia by Phigalus.

[8.3.2] Pallantium is mentioned by Stesichorus of Himera in his Geryoneid. Phigalia and Oresthasium in course of time changed their names, Oresthasium to Oresteium after Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, Phigalia to Phialia after Phialus, the son of Bucolion. Cities were founded by Trapezeus also, and by Daseatas, Macareus, Helisson, Acacus and Thocnus. The last founded Thocnia, and Acacus Acacesium. It was after this Acacus, according to the Arcadian account, that Homer¹ made a surname for Hermes.

[8.3.3] Helisson has given a name to both the town and the river so called, and similarly Macaria, Dasea, and Trapezus were named after the sons of Lycaon. Orchomenus became founder of both the town called Methydrium and of Orchomenus, styled by Homer² “rich in sheep.” Hypsus and . . . ³ founded Melaeneae and Hypsus, and also Thyraeum and Haemoniae. The Arcadians are of opinion that both the Thyrea in Argolis and also the Thyrean gulf were named after this Thyraeus.

[8.3.4] Maenalus founded Maenalus, which was in ancient times the most famous of the cities of Arcadia, Tegeates founded Tegea and Mantineus Mantineia. Cromi was named after Cromus, Charisia after Charisius, its founder, Tricoloni after Tricolonus, Peraethenses after Peraethus, Asea after Aseatas, Lycoa after . . . ⁴ and Sumatia after Sumateus. Alipherus also and Heraeus both gave their names to cities.

[8.3.5] But Oenotrus, the youngest of the sons of Lycaon, asked his brother Nyctimus for money and men and crossed by sea to Italy; the land of Oenotria received its name from Oenotrus who was its king. This was the first expedition despatched from Greece to found a colony, and if a man makes the most careful calculation possible he will discover that no foreigners either emigrated to another land before Oenotrus. In addition to all this male issue, Lycaon had a daughter Callisto. This Callisto (I repeat the current Greek legend) was loved by Zeus and mated with him. When Hera detected the intrigue she turned Callisto into a bear, and Artemis to please Hera shot the bear. Zeus sent Hermes with orders to save the child that Callisto bore in her womb,

[8.3.6] and Callisto herself he turned into the constellation known as the Great Bear, which is mentioned by Homer in the return voyage of Odysseus from Calypso:–

Gazing at the Pleiades and late-setting Bootes,
And the Bear, which they also call the Wain. Hom. Od. 5.272

But it may be that the constellation is merely named in honor of Callisto, since her grave is pointed out by the Arcadians.

[8.4.1] IV. After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas the son of Callisto came to the throne. He introduced the cultivation of crops, which he learned from Triptolemus, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other things besides, having learned the art of spinning from Adristas. After this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians.

[8.4.2] His wife, according to the legend, was no mortal woman but a Dryad nymph. For they used to call some nymphs Dryads, others Epimeliads, and others Naiads, and Homer in his poetry talks mostly of Naiad nymphs. This nymph they call Erato, and by her they say that Arcas had Azan, Apheidas and Elatus. Previously he had had Autolaus, an illegitimate son.

[8.4.3] When his sons grew up, Arcas divided the land between them into three parts, and one district was named Azania after Azan; from Azania, it is said, settled the colonists who dwell about the cave in Phrygia called Steunos and the river Pencalas. To Apheidas fell Tegea and the land adjoining, and for this reason poets too call Tegea “the lot of Apheidas.”

[8.4.4] Elatus got Mount Cyllene, which down to that time had received no name. Afterwards Elatus migrated to what is now called Phocis, helped the Phocians when hard pressed in war by the Phlegyans, and became the founder of the city Elateia. It is said that Azan had a son Cleitor, Apheidas a son Aleus, and that Elatus had five sons, Aepytus, Pereus, Cyllen, Ischys, and Stymphalus.

[8.4.5] On the death of Axan, the son of Arcas, athletic contests were held for the first time; horse-races were certainly held, but I cannot speak positively about other contests. Now Cleitor the son of Azan dwelt in Lycosura, and was the most powerful of the kings, founding Cleitor, which he named after himself; Aleus held his father's portion.

[8.4.6] Of the sons of Elatus, Cyllen gave his name to Mount Cyllene, and Stymphalus gave his to the spring and to the city Stymphalus near the spring. The story of the death of Ischys, the son of Elatus, I have already told in my history of Argolis.⁵ Pereus, they say, had no male child, but only a daughter, Neaera. She married Autolycus, who lived on Mount Parnassus, and was said to be a son of Hermes, although his real father was Baedalion.

[8.4.7] Cleitor, the son of Azan, had no children, and the sovereignty of the Arcadians devolved upon Aepytus, the son of Elatus. While out hunting, Aepytus was killed, not by any of the more powerful beasts, but by a seps that he failed to notice. This species of snake I have myself seen. It is like the smallest kind of adder, of the color of ash, with spots dotted here and there. It has a broad head and a narrow neck, a large belly and a short tail. This snake, like another called cerastes (“the horned snake”), walks with a sidelong motion, as do crabs.

[8.4.8] After Aepytus Aleus came to the throne. For Agamedes and Gortys, the sons of Stymphalus, were three generations removed from Arcas, and Aleus, the son of Apheidas, two generations. Aleus built the old sanctuary in Tegea of Athena Alea, and made Tegea the capital of his kingdom. Gortys the son of Stymphalus founded the city Gortys on a river which is also called after him. The sons of Aleus were Lycurgus, Amphidamas and Cepheus; he also had a daughter Auge.

[8.4.9] Hecataeus says that this Auge used to have intercourse with Heracles when he came to Tegea. At last it was discovered that she had borne a child to Heracles, and Aleus, putting her with her infant son in a chest, sent them out to sea. She came to Teuthras, lord of the plain of the Caicus, who fell in love with her and married her. The tomb of Auge still exists at Pergamus above the Calcus; it is a mound of earth surrounded by a basement of stone and surmounted by a figure of a naked woman in bronze.

[8.4.10] After the death of Aleus Lycurgus his son got the kingdom as being the eldest; he is notorious for killing, by treachery and riot in fair fight, a warrior called Areithous. Of his two sons, Ancaeus and Epochus, the latter fell ill and died, while the former joined the expedition of Jason to Colchis; afterwards, while hunting down with Meleager the Calydonian boar, he was killed by the brute.

[8.5.1] V. So Lycurgus outlived both his sons, and reached an extreme old age. On his death, Echemus, son of Aeropus, son of Cepheus, son of Aleus, became king of the Arcadians. In his time the Dorians, in their attempt to return to the Peloponnesus under the leadership of Hyllus, the son of Heracles, were defeated by the Achaeans at the Isthmus of Corinth, and Echemus killed Hyllus, who had challenged him to single combat. I have come to the conclusion that this is a more probable story than the one I gave before,⁶ that on this occasion Orestes was king of the Achaeans, and that it was during his reign that Hyllus attempted to return to the Peloponnesus. If the second account be accepted, it would appear that Timandra, the daughter of Tyndareus, married Echemus, who killed Hyllus.

[8.5.2] Agapenor, the son of Ancaeus, the son of Lycurgus, who was king after Echemus, led the Arcadians to Troy. After the capture of Troy the storm that overtook the Greeks on their return home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to Cyprus, and so Agapenor became the founder of Paphos, and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos (Old Paphos). Up to that time the goddess had been worshipped by the Cyprians in the district called Golgi.

[8.5.3] Afterwards Laodice, a descendant of Agapenor, sent to Tegea a robe as a gift for Athena Alea. The inscription on the offering told as well the race of Laodice:–

This is the robe of Laodice; she offered it to her Athena,
Sending it to her broad fatherland from divine Cyprus.

[8.5.4] When Agapenor did not return home from Troy, the kingdom devolved upon Hippothous, the son of Cercyon, the son of Agamedes, the son of Stymphalus. No remarkable event is recorded of his life, except that he established as the capital of his kingdom not Tegea but Trapezus. Aepytus, the son of Hippothous, succeeded his father to the throne, and Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, in obedience to an oracle of the Delphic Apollo, moved his home from Mycenae to Arcadia.

[8.5.5] Aepytus, the son of Hippothous, dared to enter the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantineia, into which no mortal was, just as no mortal today is, allowed to pass; on entering it he was struck blind, and shortly after this calamity he died.

[8.5.6] Aepytus was succeeded as king by his son Cypselus, and in his reign the Dorian expedition returned to the Peloponnesus, not, as three generations before, across the Corinthian Isthmus, but by sea to the place called Rhium. Cypselus, learning about the expedition, married his daughter to the son of Aristomachus whom he found without a wife, and so winning over Cresphontes he himself and the Arcadians had nothing at all to fear.

[8.5.7] Holaeas was the son of Cypselus, who, aided by the Heracleidae from Lacedaemon and Argos, restored to Messene his sister's son Aepytus. Holaeas had a son Bucolion, and he a son Phialus, who robbed Phigalus, the son of Lycaon, the founder of Phigalia, of the honor of giving his name to the city; Phialus changed it to Phialia, after his own name, but the change did not win universal acceptance.

ARCADIA (HISTORY)

[8.5.8] In the reign of Simus, the son of Phialus, the people of Phigalia lost by fire the ancient wooden image of Black Demeter. This loss proved to be a sign that Simus himself also was soon to meet his end. Simus was succeeded as king by Pompus his son, in whose reign the Aeginetans made trading voyages as far as Cyllene, from which place they carried their cargoes up country on pack-animals to the Arcadians. In return for this Pompus honored the Arcadians greatly, and furthermore gave the name Aeginetes to his son out of friendship for the Aeginetans.

[8.5.9] After Aeginetes his son Polymestor became king of the Arcadians, and it was then that Charillus and the Lacedaemonians for the first time invaded the land of Tegea with an army. They were defeated in battle by the people of Tegea, who, men and women alike, flew to arms; the whole army, including Charillus himself, were taken prisoners. Charillus and his army I shall mention at greater length in my account of Tegea.⁷

[8.5.10] Polymestor had no children, and Aechmis succeeded to the throne, who was the son of Briacas, and the nephew of Polymestor. For Briacas too was a son of Aeginetes, but younger than Polymestor. After Aechmis came to the throne occurred the war between the Lacedaemonians and the Messenians. The Arcadians had from the first been friendly to the Messenians, and on this occasion they openly fought against the Lacedaemonians on the side of Aristodemus, the king of Messenia.

[8.5.11] Aristocrates, the son of Aechmis, may have been guilty of outrages against the Arcadians of his most impious acts, however, against the gods I have sure knowledge, and I will proceed to relate them. There is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Hymnia, standing on the borders of Orchomenus, near the territory of Mantineia. Artemis Hymnia has been worshipped by all the Arcadians from the most remote period. At that time the office of priestess to the goddess was still always held by a girl who was a virgin.

[8.5.12] The maiden persisted in resisting the advances of Aristocrates, but at last, when she had taken refuge in the sanctuary, she was outraged by him near the image of Artemis. When the crime came to be generally known, the Arcadians stoned the culprit, and also changed the rule for the future; as priestess of Artemis they now appoint, not a virgin, but a woman who has had enough of intercourse with men.

[8.5.13] This man had a son Hicetas, and Hicetas had a son Aristocrates the second, named after his grandfather and also meeting with a death like his. For he too was stoned by the Arcadians, who discovered that he had received bribes from Lacedaemon, and that the Messenian disaster at the Great Ditch was caused by the treachery of Aristocrates. This sin explains why the kingship was taken from the whole house of Cypselus.

[8.6.1] VI. I spent much care upon the history of the Arcadian kings, and the genealogy as given above was told me by the Arcadians themselves. Of their memorable achievements the oldest is the Trojan war; then comes the help they gave the Messenians in their struggle against Lacedaemon, and they also took part in the action at Plataea against the Persians.⁸

[8.6.2] It was compulsion rather than sympathy that made them join the Lacedaemonians in their war against Athens and in crossing over to Asia with Agesilaus⁹; they also followed the Lacedaemonians to Leuctra in Boeotia.¹⁰ Their distrust of the Lacedaemonians was shown on many occasions; in particular, immediately after the Lacedaemonian reverse at Leuctra they seceded from them and joined the Thebans. Though they did not fight on the Greek side against Philip and the Macedonians at Chaeroneia,¹¹ nor later in Thessaly against Antipater, yet they did not actually range themselves against the Greeks.

[8.6.3] It was because of the Lacedaemonians, they say, that they took no part in resisting the Gallic threat to Thermopylae; they feared that their land would be laid waste in the absence of their men of military age. As members of the Achaean League the Arcadians were more enthusiastic than any other Greeks. The fortunes of each individual city, as distinct from those of the Arcadian people as a whole, I shall reserve for their proper place in my narrative.

MELANGEIA & MT ARTEMISIUS

[8.6.4] There is a pass into Arcadia on the Argive side in the direction of Hysiae and over Mount Parthenius into Tegean territory. There are two others on the side of Mantineia: one through what is called Prinus and one through the Ladder. The latter is the broader, and its descent had steps that were once cut into it. Crossing the Ladder you come to a place called Melangeia, from which the drinking water of the Mantineans flows down to their city.

[8.6.5] Farther off from Melangeia, about seven stades distant from Mantineia, there is a well called the Well of the Meliasts. These Meliasts celebrate the orgies of Dionysus. Near the well is a hall of Dionysus and a sanctuary of Black Aphrodite. This surname of the goddess is simply due to the fact that men do not, as the beasts do, have sexual intercourse always by day, but in most cases by night.

[8.6.6] The second road is less broad than the other, and leads over Mount Artemisius. I have already made mention of this mountain,¹² noting that on it are a temple and image of Artemis, and also the springs of the Inachus. The river Inachus, so long as it flows by the road across the mountain, is the boundary between the territory of Argos and that of Mantineia. But when it turns away from the road the stream flows through Argolis from this point on, and for this reason Aeschylus among others calls the Inachus an Argive river.

THE UNTILLED PLAIN

[8.7.1] VII. After crossing into Mantinean country over Mount Artemisius you will come to a plain called the Untilled Plain, whose name well describes it, for the rain-water coming down into it from the mountains prevents the plain from being tilled; nothing indeed could prevent it from being a lake, were it not that the water disappears into a chasm in the earth.

[8.7.2] After disappearing here it rises again at Dine (Whirlpool). Dine is a stream of fresh water rising out of the sea by what is called Genethlium in Argolis. In olden times the Argives cast horses adorned with bridles down into Dine as an offering to Poseidon. Not only here in Argolis, but also by Cheimerium in Thesprotis, is there unmistakably fresh water rising up in the sea.

[8.7.3] A greater marvel still is the water that boils in the Maeander, which comes partly from a rock surrounded by the stream, and partly rises from the mud of the river. In front of Dicaearchia also, in the land of the Etruscans, there is water boiling in the sea, and an artificial island has been made through it, so that this water is not “untilled,”¹³ but serves for hot baths.

PHILIP OF MACEDON (HISTORY)

[8.7.4] In the territory of the Mantineans on the left of the plain called Untilled is a mountain, on which are the ruins of a camp of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and of a village called Nestane. For it is said that by this Nestane Philip made an encampment, and the spring here they still call Philippium after the king. Philip came to Arcadia to bring over the Arcadians to his side, and to separate them from the rest of the Greek people.

[8.7.5] Philip may be supposed to have accomplished exploits greater than those of any Macedonian king who reigned either before or after. But nobody of sound mind would call him a good general, for no man has so sinned by continually trampling on oaths to heaven, and by breaking treaties and dishonoring his word on every occasion.

[8.7.6] The wrath of heaven was not late in visiting him; never in fact have we known it more speedy. When he was but forty-six years old, Philip fulfilled the oracle that it is said was given him when he inquired of Delphi about the Persians:–

The bull is crowned; the consummation is at hand; the sacrificer is ready.

Very soon afterwards events showed that this oracle pointed, not to the Persians, but to Philip himself.

[8.7.7] On the death of Philip, his infant son by Cleopatra, the niece of Attalus, was along with his mother dragged by Olympias on to a bronze vessel and burned to death. Afterwards Olympias killed Aridaeus also. It turned out that the god intended to mow down to destruction the family of Cassander as well. Cassander's sons were by Thessalonice, the daughter of Philip, and both Thessalonice and Aridaeus had Thessalian women for their mothers. The fate of Alexander is familiar to everybody alike.

[8.7.8] But if Philip had taken to heart the fate of the Spartan Glaucus,¹⁴ and at each of his acts had bethought himself of the verse:– ¹⁵

If a man keeps his oath his family prospers hereafter;

then, I believe, some god would not have extinguished so relentlessly the life of Alexander and, at the same time, the Macedonian supremacy.

[8.8.1] VIII. So much by way of a digression. After the ruins of Nestane is a holy sanctuary of Demeter, and every year the Mantineans hold a festival in her honor. By Nestane there lies, on lower ground, about . . . itself too forming part of the Untilled Plain, and it is called the Dancing Floor of Maera. The road across the Untilled Plain is about ten stades. After crossing it you will descend, a little farther on, into another plain. On it, alongside the highway, is a well called Lamb.

[8.8.2] The following story is told by the Arcadians. When Rhea had given birth to Poseidon, she laid him in a flock for him to live there with the lambs, and the spring too received its name just because the lambs pastured around it. Rhea, it is said, declared to Cronus that she had given birth to a horse, and gave him a foal to swallow instead of the child, just as later she gave him in place of Zeus a stone wrapped up in swaddling clothes.

[8.8.3] When I began to write my history I was inclined to count these legends as foolishness, but on getting as far as Arcadia I grew to hold a more thoughtful view of them, which is this. In the days of old those Greeks who were considered wise spoke their sayings not straight out but in riddles, and so the legends about Cronus I conjectured to be one sort of Greek wisdom. In matters of divinity, therefore, I shall adopt the received tradition.

MANTINEIA

[8.8.4] The city of the Mantineans is about twelve stades farther away from this spring. Now there are plain indications that it was in another place that Mantineus the son of Lycaon founded his city, which even to-day is called Ptolis (City) by the Arcadians. From here, in obedience to an oracle, Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus, the son of Aleus, removed the inhabitants to the modern site, accepting as a guide for the pilgrimage a snake; the breed of snake is not recorded. It is for this reason that the river, which flows by the modern city, has received the name Ophis (Snake).

[8.8.5] If we may base a conjecture on the verses of Homer, we are led to believe that this snake was a dragon. When in the list of ships he tells how the Greeks abandoned Philoctetes in Lemnos suffering from his wound, he does not style the water-serpent a snake. But the dragon that the eagle dropped among the Trojans he does call a snake. So it is likely that Antinoe's guide also was a dragon.¹⁶

MANTINEIA (HISTORY)

[8.8.6] The Mantineans did not fight on the side of the other Arcadians against the Lacedaemonians at Dipaea, but in the Peloponnesian war they rose with the Eleans against the Lacedaemonians,¹⁷ and joined in battle with them after the arrival of reinforcements from Athens. Their friendship with the Athenians led them to take part also in the Sicilian expedition.¹⁸

[8.8.7] Later on a Lacedaemonian army under Agesipolis, the son of Pausanias, invaded their territory. Agesipolis was victorious in the battle and shut up the Mantineans within their walls, capturing the city shortly after. He did not take it by storm, but turned the river Ophis against its fortifications, which were made of unburnt brick.

[8.8.8] Now against the blows of engines brick brings greater security than fortifications built of stone. For stones break and are dislodged from their fittings; brick, however, does not suffer so much from engines, but it crumbles under the action of water just as wax is melted by the sun.

[8.8.9] This method of demolishing the fortifications of the Mantineans was not discovered by Agesipolis. It was a stratagem invented at an earlier date by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, when he was besieging Boges and the other Persians who were holding Eion on the Strymon.¹⁹ Agesipolis only copied an established custom, and one celebrated among the Greeks. After taking Mantineia, he left a small part of it inhabited, but by far the greater part he razed to the ground, settling the inhabitants in villages.

[8.8.10] Fate decreed that the Thebans should restore the Mantineans from the villages to their own country after the engagement at Leuctra,²⁰ but when restored they proved far from grateful. They were caught treating with the Lacedaemonians and intriguing for a peace with them privately without reference to the rest of the Arcadian people. So through their fear of the Thebans they openly changed sides and joined the Lacedaemonian confederacy, and when the battle took place at Mantineia between the Lacedaemonians and the Thebans under Epaminondas,²¹ the Mantineans joined the ranks of the Lacedaemonians.

[8.8.11] Subsequently the Mantineans quarrelled with the Lacedaemonians, and seceded from them to the Achaean League. They defeated Agis, the son of Eudamidas, king of Sparta, in defence of their own country, with the help of an Achaean army under the leadership of Aratus. They also joined the Achaeans in their struggle against Cleomenes and helped to destroy the Lacedaemonian power. Antigonus of Macedonia, who was guardian of Philip, the father of Perseus, before he came of age, was an ardent supporter of the Achaeans, and so the Mantineans, among other honors, changed the name of their city to Antigoneia.

[8.8.12] Afterwards, when Augustus was about to fight the naval engagement off the cape of Actian Apollo, the Mantineans fought on the side of the Romans, while the rest of Arcadia joined the ranks of Antonius, for no other reason, so it seems to me, except that the Lacedaemonians favoured the cause of Augustus. Ten generations afterwards, when Hadrian became Emperor, he took away from the Mantineans the name imported from Macedonia, and gave back to their city its old name of Mantineia.

[8.9.1] IX. The Mantineans possess a temple composed of two parts, being divided almost exactly at the middle by a wall. In one part of the temple is an image of Asclepius, made by Alcamenes; the other part is a sanctuary of Leto and her children, and their images were made by Praxiteles two generations after Alcamenes. On the pedestal of these are figures of Muses together with Marsyas playing the flute. Here there is a figure of Polybius, the son of Lycortas, carved in relief upon a slab, of whom I shall make fuller mention later on.²²

[8.9.2] The Mantineans have other sanctuaries also, one of Zeus Saviour, and one of Zeus Giver of Gifts, in that he gives good things to men. There is also a sanctuary of the Dioscuri, and in another place one of Demeter and the Maid. Here they keep a fire, taking anxious care not to let it go out. Near the theater I saw a temple of Hera.

[8.9.3] Praxiteles made the images Hera is sitting, while Athena and Hera's daughter Hebe are standing by her side. Near the altar of Hera is the grave of Arcas, the son of Callisto. The bones of Arcas they brought from Maenalus, in obedience to an oracle delivered to them from Delphi:–

[8.9.4] Maenalia is storm-swept, where lies
Arcas, from whom all Arcadians are named,
In a place where meet three, four, even five roads;
Thither I bid you go, and with kind heart
Take up Arcas and bring him back to your lovely city.
There make Arcas a precinct and sacrifices.

This place, where the grave of Arcas is, they call Altars of the Sun.

[8.9.5] Not far from the theater are famous tombs, one called Common Hearth, round in shape, where, they told me, lies Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus. On it stands a slab, on which is carved in relief a horseman, Grylus, the son of Xenophon.

[8.9.6] Behind the theater I found the remains, with an image, of a temple of Aphrodite surnamed Ally. The inscription on the pedestal announced that the image was dedicated by Nicippe, the daughter of Paseas. This sanctuary was made by the Mantineans to remind posterity of their fighting on the side of the Romans at the battle of Actium. They also worship Athena Alea, of whom they have a sanctuary and an image.

[8.9.7] Antinous too was deified by them; his temple is the newest in Mantineia. He was a great favorite of the Emperor Hadrian. I never saw him in the flesh, but I have seen images and pictures of him. He has honors in other places also, and on the Nile is an Egyptian city named after Antinous. He has won worship in Mantineia for the following reason. Antinous was by birth from Bithynium beyond the river Sangarius, and the Bithynians are by descent Arcadians of Mantineia.

[8.9.8] For this reason the Emperor established his worship in Mantineia also; mystic rites are celebrated in his honor each year, and games every four years. There is a building in the gymnasium of Mantineia containing statues of Antinous, and remarkable for the stones with which it is adorned, and especially so for its pictures. Most of them are portraits of Antinous, who is made to look just like Dionysus. There is also a copy here of the painting in the Cerameicus which represented the engagement of the Athenians at Mantineia.

[8.9.9] In the market-place is a bronze portrait-statue of a woman, said by the Mantineans to be Diomeneia, the daughter of Arcas, and a hero-shrine of Podares, who was killed, they say, in the battle with the Thebaus under Epaminondas. Three generations ago they changed the inscription on the grave and made it apply to a descendant of this Podares with the same name, who was born late enough to have Roman citizenship.

[8.9.10] In my time the elder Podares was honored by the Mantineans, who said that he who proved the bravest in the battle, of themselves and of their allies, was Grylus, the son of Xenophon; next to Grylus was Cephisodorus of Marathon, who at the time commanded the Athenian horse. The third place for valor they give to Podares.

MT ALESIUM

[8.10.1] X. There are roads leading from Mantineia into the rest of Arcadia, and I will go on to describe the most noteworthy objects on each of them. On the left of the highway leading to Tegea there is, beside the walls of Mantineia, a place where horses race, and not far from it is a race-course, where they celebrate the games in honor of Antinous. Above the race-course is Mount Alesium, so called from the wandering (ale) of Rhea, on which is a grove of Demeter.

[8.10.2] By the foot of the mountain is the sanctuary of Horse Poseidon, not more than six stades distant from Mantineia. About this sanctuary I, like everyone else who has mentioned it, can write only what I have heard. The modern sanctuary was built by the Emperor Hadrian, who set overseers over the workmen, so that nobody might look into the old sanctuary, and none of the ruins be removed. He ordered them to build around the new temple. Originally, they say, this sanctuary was built for Poseidon by Agamedes and Trophonius,²³ who worked oak logs and fitted them together.

[8.10.3] They set up no barrier at the entrance to prevent men going inside; but they stretched across it a thread of wool. Perhaps they thought that even this would strike fear into the religious people of that time, and perhaps there was also some power in the thread. It is notorious that even Aepytus, the son of Hippothous, entered the sanctuary neither by jumping over the thread nor by slipping under it, but by cutting it through. For this sin he was blinded by a wave that dashed on to his eyes, and forthwith his life left him.

[8.10.4] There is an old legend that a wave of sea-water rises up in the sanctuary. A like story is told by the Athenians about the wave on the Acropolis, and by the Carians living in Mylasa about the sanctuary of the god called in the native tongue Osogoa. But the sea at Phalerum is about twenty stades distant from Athens, and the port of Mylasa is eighty stades from the city. But at Mantineia the sea rises after a very long distance, and quite plainly through the divine will.

PODARES OF MANTINEIA (HISTORY)

[8.10.5] Beyond the sanctuary of Poseidon is a trophy made of stone commemorating the victory over the Lacedaemonians under Agis. The course of the battle was, it is said, after this wise. The right wing was held by the Mantineans themselves, who put into the field all of military age under the command of Podares, the grandson of the Podares who fought against the Thebans. They had with them also the Elean seer Thrasybulus, the son of Aeneas, one of the Iamids. This man foretold a victory for the Mantineans and took a personal part in the fighting.

[8.10.6] On the left wing was stationed all the rest of the Arcadian army, each city under its own leader, the contingent of Megalopolis being led by Lydiades and Leocydes. The center was entrusted to Aratus, with the Sicyonians and the Achaeans. The Lacedaemonians under Agis, who with the royal staff officers were in the center, extended their line so as to make it equal in length to that of their enemies.

[8.10.7] Aratus, acting on an arrangement with the Arcadians, fell back with his command, as though the pressure of the Lacedaemonians was too severe. As they gave way they gradually²⁴ made their formation crescent-shaped. The Lacedaemonians under Agis, thinking that victory was theirs, pressed in close order yet harder on Aratus and his men. They were followed by those on the wings, who thought it a great achievement to put to flight Aratus and his host.

[8.10.8] But the Arcadians got in their rear unperceived, and the Lacedaemonians were surrounded, losing the greater part of their army, while King Agis himself fell, the son of Eudamidas. The Mantineans affirmed that Poseidon too manifested himself in their defence, and for this reason they erected a trophy as an offering to Poseidon.

[8.10.9] That gods were present at war and slaughter of men has been told by the poets who have treated of the sufferings of heroes at Troy, and the Athenians relate in song how gods sided with them at Marathon and at the battle of Salamis. Very plainly the host of the Gauls was destroyed at Delphi by the god, and manifestly by demons. So there is precedent for the story of the Mantineans that they won their victory by the aid of Poseidon.

[8.10.10] Arcesilaus, an ancestor, ninth in descent, of' Leocydes, who with Lydiades was general of the Megalopolitans, is said by the Arcadians to have seen, when dwelling in Lycosura, the sacred deer, enfeebled with age, of the goddess called Lady. This deer, they say, had a collar round its neck, with writing on the collar:–

I was a fawn when captured, at the time when Agapenor went to Troy.

This story proves that the deer is an animal much longer-lived even than the elephant.

SEA, PHOEZON & CHARMON

[8.11.1] XI. After the sanctuary of Poseidon you will come to a place full of oak trees, called Sea, and the road from Mantineia to Tegea leads through the oaks. The boundary between Mantineia and Tegea is the round altar on the highroad. If you will turn aside to the left from the sanctuary of Poseidon, you will reach, after going just about five stades, the graves of the daughters of Pelias. These, the Mantineans say, came to live with them when they were fleeing from the scandal at their father's death.

[8.11.2] Now when Medea reached Iolcus, she immediately began to plot against Pelias; she was really conspiring with Jason, while pretending to be at variance with him. She promised the daughters of Pelias that, if they wished, she would restore his youth to their father, now a very old man. Having butchered in some way a ram, she boiled his flesh with drugs in a pot, by the aid of which she took out of the pot a live lamb.

[8.11.3] So she took Pelias and cut him up to boil him, hut what the daughters received was not enough to bury. This result forced the women to change their home to Arcadia, and after their death mounds were made there for their tombs. No poet, so far as I have read, has given them names, but the painter Micon inscribed on their portraits Asteropeia and Antinoe.

[8.11.4] A Place called Phoezon is about twenty stades distant from these graves. Phoezon is a tomb of stone surrounded with a basement, raised only a little above the ground. At this point the road becomes very narrow, and here, they say, is the tomb of Areithous, surnamed Corynetes (Clubman) because of his weapon.

EPAMINONDAS OF SPARTA (HISTORY)

[8.11.5] As you go along the road leading from Mantineia to Pallantium, at a distance of about thirty stades, the highway is skirted by the grove of what is called the Ocean, and here the cavalry of the Athenians and Mantineans fought against the Boeotian horse. Epaminondas, the Mantineans say, was killed by Machaerion, a man of Mantineia. The Lacedaemonians on their part say that a Spartan killed Epaminondas, but they too give Machaerion as the name of the man.

[8.11.6] The Athenian account, with which the Theban agrees, makes out that Epaminondas was wounded by Grylus. Similar is the story on the picture portraying the battle of Mantineia. All can see that the Mantineans gave Grylus a public funeral and dedicated where he fell his likeness on a slab in honor of the bravest of their allies. The Lacedaemonians also speak of Machaerion as the slayer, but actually at Sparta there is no Machaerion, nor is there at Mantineia, who has received honors for bravery.

[8.11.7] When Epaminondas was wounded, they carried him still living from the ranks. For a while he kept his hand to the wound in agony, with his gaze fixed on the combatants, the place from which he looked at them being called Scope (Look) by posterity. But when the combat came to an indecisive end, he took his hand away from the wound and died, being buried on the spot where the armies met.

[8.11.8] On the grave stands a pillar, and on it is a shield with a dragon in relief. The dragon means that Epaminondas belonged to the race of those called the Sparti, while there are slabs on the tomb, one old, with a Boeotian inscription, the other dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian, who wrote the inscription on it.

[8.11.9] Everybody must praise Epaminondas for being the most famous Greek general, or at least consider him second to none other. For the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian leaders enjoyed the ancient reputation of their cities, while their soldiers were men of a spirit, but the Thebans, whom Epaminondas raised to the highest position, were a disheartened people, accustomed to obey others.

[8.11.10] Epaminondas had been told before by an oracle from Delphi to beware of “ocean.” So he was afraid to step on board a man-of-war or to sail in a merchant-ship, but by “ocean” the god indicated the grove “Ocean” and not the sea. Places with the same name misled Hannibal the Carthaginian, and before him the Athenians also.

[8.11.11] Hannibal received an oracle from Ammon that when he died he would be buried in Libyan earth. So he hoped to destroy the Roman empire, to return to his home in Libya, and there to die of old age. But when Flamininus the Roman was anxious to take him alive, Hannibal came to Prusias as a suppliant. Repulsed by Prusias he jumped upon his horse, but was wounded in the finger by his drawn sword. when he had proceeded only a few stades his wound caused a fever, and he died on the third day. The place where lie died is called Libyssa by the Nicomedians.

[8.11.12] The Athenians received an oracle from Dodona ordering them to colonize Sicily, and Sicily is a small hill not far from Athens. But they, not understanding the order, were persuaded to undertake expeditions overseas, especially the Syracusan war. More examples could be found similar to those I have given.

[8.12.1] XII. Just about a stade from the grave of Epaminondas is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Charmon. The oaks in the groves of the Arcadians are of different sorts; some of them are called “broad-leaved,” others “edible oaks.” A third kind have a porous bark, which is so light that they actually make from it floats for anchors and nets. The bark of this oak is called “cork” by the Ionians, for example by Hermesianax, the elegiac poet.

MT OSTRACINA

[8.12.2] From Mantineia there is a road leading to Methydrium, which to-day is not a city, but only a village belonging to Megalopolis. Thirty stades farther is a plain called Alcimedon, and beyond the plain is Mount Ostracina, in which is a cave where dwelt Alcimedon, one of those called heroes.

[8.12.3] This man's daughter, Phialo, had connection, say the Phigalians, with Heracles. When Alcimedon realized that she had a child, he exposed her to perish on the mountain, and with her the baby boy she had borne, whom the Arcadians call Aechmagoras. On being exposed the babe began to cry, and a jay heard him wailing and began to imitate his cries.

[8.12.4] It happened that Heracles, passing along that road, heard the jay, and, thinking that the crying was that of a baby and not of a bird, turned straight to the voice. Recognizing Phialo he loosed her from her bonds and saved the baby. Wherefore the spring hard by is named Cissa (Jay) after the bird. Forty stades distant from the spring is the place called Petrosaca, which is the boundary between Megalopolis and Mantineia.

OLD MANTINEIA & MAERA

[8.12.5] In addition to the roads mentioned there are two others, leading to Orchomenus. On one is what is called the stadium of Ladas, where Ladas practised his running, and by it a sanctuary of Artemis, and on the right of the road is a high mound of earth. It is said to be the grave of Penelope, but the account of her in the poem called Thesprotis is not in agreement with this saying.

[8.12.6] For in it the poet says that when Odysseus returned from Troy he had a son Ptoliporthes by Penelope. But the Mantinean story about Penelope says that Odysseus convicted her of bringing paramours to his home, and being cast out by him she went away at first to Lacedaemon, but afterwards she removed from Sparta to Mantineia, where she died.

[8.12.7] Adjoining this grave is a plain of no great size, and on the plain is a mountain whereon still stand the ruins of old Mantineia. To-day the place is called Ptolis. Advancing a little way to the north of it you come to the spring of Alalcomeneia, and thirty stades from Ptolis are the ruins of a village called Maera, with the grave of Maera, if it be really the case that Maera was buried here and not in Tegean land. For probably the Tegeans, and not the Mantineans, are right when they say that Maera, the daughter of Atlas, was buried in their land. Perhaps, however, the Maera who came to the land of Mantineia was another, a descendant of Maera, the daughter of Atlas.

MT ANCHISIA

[8.12.8] There still remains the road leading to Orchomenus, on which are Mount Anchisia and the tomb of Anchises at the foot of the mountain. For when Aeneas was voyaging to Sicily, he put in with his ships to Laconia, becoming the founder of the cities Aphrodisias and Etis; his father Anchises for some reason or other came to this place and died there, where Aeneas buried him. This mountain they call Anchisia after Anchises.

[8.12.9] The probability of this story is strengthened by the fact that the Aeolians who to-day occupy Troy nowhere point out a tomb of Anchises in their own land. Near the grave of Anchises are the ruins of a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and at Anchisiae is the boundary between Mantineia and Orchomenus.

ORCHOMENUS

[8.13.1] XIII. In the territory of Orchomenus, on the left of the road from Anchisiae, there is on the slope of the mountain the sanctuary of Artemis Hymnia. The Mantineans, too, share it . . . a priestess also and a priest. It is the custom for these to live their whole lives in purity, not only sexual but in all respects, and they neither wash nor spend their lives as do ordinary people, nor do they enter the home of a private man. I know that the “entertainers” of the Ephesian Artemis live in a similar fashion, but for a year only, the Ephesians calling them Essenes. They also hold an annual festival in honor of Artemis Hymnia.

[8.13.2] The former city of Orchomenus was on the peak of a mountain, and there still remain ruins of a market-place and of walls. The modern, inhabited city lies under the circuit of the old wall. Worth seeing here is a spring, from which they draw water, and there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and of Aphrodite, the images being of stone. Near the city is a wooden image of Artemis. It is set in a large cedar tree, and after the tree they call the goddess the Lady of the Cedar.

[8.13.3] Beneath the city are heaps of stones at intervals, which were piled over men who fell in war. With what Peloponnesians, whether Arcadians or other, the war was fought, was set forth neither by inscriptions on the graves nor in Orchomenian tradition.

MT TRACHY & CAPHYA

[8.13.4] Opposite the city is Mount Trachy (Rough). The rain-water, flowing through a deep gully between the city and Mount Trachy, descends to another Orchomenian plain, which is very considerable in extent, but the greater part of it is a lake. As you go out of Orchomenus, after about three stades, the straight road leads you to the city Caphya, along the side of the gully and afterwards along the water of the lake on the left. The other road, after you have crossed the water flowing through the gully, goes under Mount Trachy.

[8.13.5] On this road the first thing is the tomb of Aristocrates, who once outraged the virgin priestess of the goddess Hymnia, and after the grave of Aristocrates are springs called Teneiae, and about seven stades distant from the springs is a place Amilus, which once, they say, was a city. Here the road forks again, one way leading to Stymphalus, the other to Pheneus.

[8.13.6] On the road to Pheneus you will come to a mountain. On this mountain meet the boundaries of Orchomenus, Pheneus and Caphya. Over the boundaries extends a high crag, called the Caphyatic Rock. After the boundaries of the cities I have mentioned lies a ravine, and the road to Pheneus leads through it. Just about the middle of the ravine water rises up from a spring, and at the end of the ravine is a place called Caryae.

PLAIN OF PHENEUS

[8.14.1] XIV. The plain of Pheneus lies below Caryae, and they say that once the water rose on it and flooded the ancient city of Pheneus, so that even to-day there remain on the mountains marks up to which, it is said, the water rose. Five stades distant from Caryae is a mountain called Oryxis, and another, Mount Sciathis. Under each mountain is a chasm that receives the water from the plain.

[8.14.2] These chasms according to the people of Pheneus are artificial, being made by Heracles when he lived in Pheneus with Laonome, the mother of Amphitryo, who was, it is said, the son of Alcaeus by Laonome, the daughter of Guneus, a woman of Pheneus, and not by Lysidice, the daughter of Pelops. Now if Heracles really migrated to Pheneus, one might believe that when expelled by Eurystheus from Tiryns he did not go at once to Thebes, but went first to Pheneus.

[8.14.3] Heracles dug a channel through the middle of the plain of Pheneus for the river Olbius, which some Arcadians call, not Olbius but Aroanius. The length of the cutting is fifty stades, its depth, where it has not fallen in, is as much as thirty feet. The river, however, no longer flows along it, but it has gone back to its old bed, having left the work of Heracles.

PHENEUS

[8.14.4] About fifty stades from the chasms made in the mountains I have mentioned is the city, founded, say the Pheneatians, by Pheneus, an aboriginal. Their acropolis is precipitous on all sides, mostly so naturally, but a few parts have been artificially strengthened, to make it more secure. On the acropolis here is a temple of Athena surnamed Tritonia, but of it I found ruins only remaining.

[8.14.5] There stands also a bronze Poseidon, surnamed Horse, whose image, it is said, was dedicated by Odysseus. The legend is that Odysseus lost his mares, traversed Greece in search of them, and on the site in the land of Pheneus where he found his mares founded a sanctuary of Artemis, calling the goddess Horse-finder, and also dedicated the image of Horse Poseidon.

[8.14.6] When Odysseus found his mares he was minded, it is said, to keep horses in the land of Pheneus, just as he reared his cows, they say, on the mainland opposite Ithaca. On the base of the image the people of Pheneus pointed out to me writing, purporting to be instructions of Odysseus to those tending his mares.

[8.14.7] The rest of the account of the people of Pheneus it will be reasonable to accept, but I cannot believe their statement that Odysseus dedicated the bronze image. For men had not yet learned how to make bronze images in one piece, after the manner of those weaving a garment. Their method of working bronze statues I have already described when speaking of the image of Zeus Most High in my history of the Spartans.²⁵

[8.14.8] The first men to melt bronze and to cast images were the Samians Rhoecus the son of Philaeus and Theodorus the son of Telecles. Theodorus also made the emerald signet, which Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, constantly wore, being exceedingly proud of it.

[8.14.9] As you go down from the acropolis of Pheneus you come to a stadium, and on a hill stands a tomb of Iphicles, the brother of Heracles and the father of Iolaus. Iolaus, according to the Greek account, shared most of the labours of Heracles, but his father Iphicles, in the first battle fought by Heracles against the Eleans and Augeas, was wounded by the sons of Actor, who were called after their mother Moline. In a fainting condition he was carried by his relatives to Pheneus, where he was carefully nursed by Buphagus, a citizen of Pheneus, and by his wife Promne, who also buried him when he died of his wound.

[8.14.10] They still sacrifice to Iphicles as to a hero, and of the gods the people of Pheneus worship most Hermes, in whose honor they celebrate the games called Hermaea; they have also a temple of Hermes, and a stone image, made by an Athenian, Eucheir the son of Eubulides. Behind the temple is the grave of Myrtilus. The Greeks say that he was the son of Hermes, and that he served as charioteer to Oenomaus. Whenever a man arrived to woo the daughter of Oenomaus, Myrtilus craftily drove on the mares, while Oenomaus on the course shot down the wooer when he came near.

[8.14.11] Myrtilus himself, too, was in love with Hippodameia, but his courage failing him he shrank from the competition and served Oenomaus as his charioteer. At last, it is said, he proved a traitor to Oenomaus, being induced thereto by an oath sworn by Pelops that he would let him be with Hippodameia for one night. So when reminded of his oath Pelops threw him out of the ship. The people of Pheneus say that the body of Myrtilus was cast ashore by the tide, that they took it up and buried it, and that every year they sacrifice to him by night as to a hero.

[8.14.12] It is plain that Pelops did not make a long coasting voyage, but only sailed from the mouth of the Alpheius to the harbor of Elis. So the Sea of Myrto is obviously not named after Myrtilus, the son of Hermes, as it begins at Euboea and reaches the Aegaean by way of the uninhabited island of Helene. I think that a probable account is given by the antiquarians of Euboea, who say that the sea is named after a woman called Myrto.

[8.15.1] XV. The people of Pheneus have also a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Eleusinian, and they perform a ritual to the goddess, saying that the ceremonies at Eleusis are the same as those established among themselves. For Naus, they assert, came to them because of an oracle from Delphi, being a grandson of Eumolpus. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian has been set up Petroma, as it is called, consisting of two large stones fitted one to the other.

[8.15.2] When every other year they celebrate what they call the Greater Rites, they open these stones. They take from out them writings that refer to the rites, read them in the hearing of the initiated, and return them on the same night. Most Pheneatians, too, I know, take an oath by the Petroma in the most important affairs.

[8.15.3] On the top is a sphere, with a mask inside of Demeter Cidaria. This mask is put on by the priest at the Greater Rites, who for some reason or other beats with rods the Folk Underground. The Pheneatians have a story that even before Naus arrived the wanderings of Demeter brought her to their city also. To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only.

[8.15.4] There is a sacred story to explain why the bean in their eyes is an impure kind of pulse. Those who, the Pheneatians say, gave the goddess a welcome, Trisaules and Damithales, had a temple of Demeter Thesmia (Law-goddess) built under Mount Cyllene, and they established for her rites also, which they celebrate even to this day. This temple of the goddess Thesmia is just about fifteen stades away from the city.

ROAD TO PELLENE

[8.15.5] As you go from Pheneus to Pellene and Aegeira, an Achaean city, after about fifteen stades you come to a temple of Pythian Apollo. I found there only its ruins, which include a large altar of white marble. Here even now the Pheneatians still sacrifice to Apollo and Artemis, and they say that the sanctuary was made by Heracles after capturing Elis. Here also are tombs of heroes, those who joined the campaign of Heracles against Elis and lost their lives in the fighting.

[8.15.6] They are Telamon, buried quite near the river Aroanius, a little farther away than is the sanctuary of Apollo, and Chalcodon, not far from the spring called Oenoe. Nobody could admit that there fell in this battle the Chalcodon who was the father of the Elephenor who led the Euboeans to Troy, and the Telamon who was the father of Ajax and Teucer. For how could Heracles have been helped in his task by a Chalcodon who, according to trustworthy tradition, had before this been killed in Thebes by Amphitryon?

[8.15.7] And how would Teucer have founded the city of Salamis in Cyprus if nobody had expelled him from his native city after his return from Troy? And who else would have driven him out except Telamon? So it is plain that those who helped Heracles in his campaign against Elis were not the Chalcodon of Euboea and the Telamon of Aegina. It is, and always has been, not unknown that undistinguished persons have had the same names as distinguished heroes.

MT CRATHIS

[8.15.8] The borders of Pheneus and Achaia meet in more places than one; for towards Pellene the boundary is the river called Porinas, and towards Aegeira the “road to Artemis.” ²⁶ Within the territory of the Pheneatians themselves, shortly after passing the sanctuary of the Pythian Apollo you will be on the road that leads to Mount Crathis.

[8.15.9] On this mountain is the source of the river Crathis, which flows into the sea by the side of Aegae, now a deserted spot, though in earlier days it was a city of the Achaeans. After this Crathis is named the river in Bruttium in Italy. On Mount Crathis is a sanctuary of Artemis Pyronia (Fire-goddess), and in more ancient days the Argives used to bring from this goddess fire for their Lernaean ceremonies.

MT TRICRENA & MT SEPIA

[8.16.1] XVI. Going east from Pheneus you come to a mountain peak called Geronteium and a road by it. This mountain is the boundary between the territories of Pheneus and Stymphalus. On the left of it, as you travel through the land of Pheneus, are mountains of the Pheneatians called Tricrena (Three Springs), and here are three springs. In them, says the legend, Hermes was washed after birth by the nymphs of the mountain, and for this reason they are considered sacred to Hermes.

[8.16.2] Not far from Tricrena is another mountain called Sepia, where they say that Aepytus, the son of Elatus, was killed by the snake, and they also made his grave on the spot, for they could not carry the body away. These snakes are still to be found, the Arcadians say, on the mountain, even at the present day; not many, however, for they are very scarce. The reason is that, as for the greater part of the year snow falls on the mountain, the snakes die that are cut off by the snow from their holes, while should any make good their escape to the holes, nevertheless some of them are killed by the snow, as the frost penetrates even into the very holes themselves.

[8.16.3] The grave of Aepytus I was especially anxious to see, because Homer²⁷ in his verses about the Arcadians makes mention of the tomb of Aepytus. It is a mound of earth of no great size, surrounded by a circular base of stone. Homer naturally was bound to admire it, as he had never seen a more noteworthy tomb, just as he compares the dance worked by Hephaestus on the shield of Achilles to a dance made by Daedalus, because he had never seen more clever workmanship.

[8.16.4] I know many wonderful graves, and will mention two of them, the one at Halicarnassus and one in the land of the Hebrews. The one at Halicarnassus was made for Mausolus, king of the city, and it is of such vast size, and so notable for all its ornament, that the Romans in their great admiration of it call remarkable tombs in their country “Mausolea.”

[8.16.5] The Hebrews have a grave, that of Helen, a native woman, in the city of Jerusalem, which the Roman Emperor razed to the ground. There is a contrivance in the grave whereby the door, which like all the grave is of stone, does not open until the year brings back the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the door, which, after a short interval, shuts itself. This happens at that time, but should you at any other try to open the door you cannot do so; force will not open it, but only break it down.

1. Hom. Il. 16.185
2. Hom. Il. 2.605
3. The gap in the MSS. has not yet been filled by any satisfactory emendation.
4. There is apparently a gap here in the MSS. Musurus wished to fill it by the word apo Lukeôs, “after Lyceus.”
5. See Paus. 2.26.6.
6. See Paus. 1.41.2.
7. See Paus. 8.48.4.
8. 479 B.C
9. 396 B.C
10. 371 B.C

11. 338 B.C
12. See Paus. 2.25.3.
13. That is, “idle” or “useless.” The allusion, of course, is to the Untilled Plain.
14. See Hdt. 6.86.
15. See Hes. WD 285.
16. See Hom. Il. 2.723 and Hom. Il. 12.203 and 208.
17. 418 B.C
18. 385 B.C
19. 476 or 477 B.C
20. 371 B.C

21. 362 B.C
22. See Paus. 8.30-48
23. See Paus. 9.11.1 and Paus. 9.37.4.
24. Or, taking êrema with mênoeides, “slightly crescent shaped.”
25. See Paus. 3.17.6.
26. Or, adopting Kasyser's emendation, “the river Aroanius.”
27. See Hom. Il. 2.592.