”31), and the land under the rule of Nestor, "Pylus," through which, he says, the Alpheius flows (“"of the Alpheius, that floweth in wide stream through the land of the Pylians"
”32). Of course Homer also knew of Pylus as a city (“"and they reached Pylus, the well-built city of Nestor"
”33), but the Alpheius does not flow through the city, nor past it either; in fact, another river flows past it, a river which some call "Pamisus" and others "Amathus" (whence, apparently, the epithet "Emathoëis" which has been applied to this Pylus), but the Alpheius flows through the Pylian country. [2] What is now the city of Elis had not yet been founded in Homer's time; in fact, the people of the country lived only in villages. And the country was called Coele34 Elis from the fact in the case, for the most and best of it was "Coele." It was only relatively late, after the Persian wars, that people came together from many communities into what is now the city of Elis. And I might almost say that, with only a few exceptions, the other Peloponnesian places named by the poet were also named by him, not as cities, but as countries, each country being composed of several communities, from which in later times the well-known cities were settled. For instance, in Arcadia, Mantineia was settled by Argive colonists from five communities; and Tegea from nine; and also Heraea from nine, either by Cleombrotus or by Cleonymus. And in the same way the city Aegium was made up of seven or eight communities; the city Patrae of seven; and the city Dyme of eight. And in this way the city Elis was also made up of the communities of the surrounding country (one of these . . . the Agriades).35 The Peneius River flows through the city past the gymnasium. And the Eleians did not make this gymnasium until a long time after the districts that were under Nestor had passed into their possession. [3] These districts were Pisatis (of which Olympia was a part), Triphylia, and the country of the Cauconians. The Triphylians36 were so called from the fact that three tribes of people had come together in that country—that of the Epeians, who were there at the outset, and that of the Minyans, who later settled there, and that of the Eleians, who last dominated the country. But some name the Arcadians in the place of the Minyans, since the Arcadians had often disputed the possession of the country; and hence the same Pylus was called both Arcadian Pylus and Triphylian Pylus.37 Homer calls this whole country as far as Messene "Pylus," giving it the same name as the city. But Coele Elis was distinct from the places subject to Nestor, as is shown in the Catalogue of Ships by the names of the chieftains and of their abodes. I say this because I am comparing present conditions with those described by Homer; for we must needs institute this comparison because of the fame of the poet and because of our familiarity with him from our childhood, since all of us believe that we have not successfully treated any subject which we may have in hand until there remains in our treatment nothing that conflicts with what the poet says on the same subject, such confidence do we have in his words. Accordingly, I must give conditions as they now are, and then, citing the words of the poet, in so far as they bear on the matter, take them also into consideration. [4] In the Eleian country, on the north, is a cape, Araxus, sixty stadia distant from Dyme, an Achaean city. This cape, then, I put down as the beginning of the seaboard of the Eleians. After this cape, as one proceeds towards the west, one comes to the naval station of the Eleians, Cyllene, from which there is a road leading inland to the present city Elis, a distance of one hundred and twenty stadia. Homer, too, mentions this Cyllene when he says, "Otus, a Cyllenian, a chief of the Epeians,"38 for he would not have represented a chieftain of the Epeians as being from the Arcadian mountain.39 Cyllene is a village of moderate size; and it has the Asclepius made by Colotes—an ivory image that is wonderful to behold. After Cyllene one comes to the promontory Chelonatas, the most westerly point of the Peloponnesus. Off Chelonatas lies an isle, and also some shallows that are on the common boundary between Coele Elis and the country of the Pisatae; and from here the voyage to Cephallenia is not more than eighty stadia. Somewhere in this neighborhood, on the aforesaid boundary line, there also flows the River Elison or Elisa. [5] It is between Chelonatas and Cyllene that the River Peneius empties; as also the River Sellëeis, which is mentioned by the poet and flows out of Pholoe. On the Sellëeis is situated a city Ephyra, which is to be distinguished from the Thesprotian, Thessalian, and Corinthian Ephyras;40 it is a fourth Ephyra, and is situated on the road that leads to Lasion, being either the same city as Boenoa (for thus Oenoe is usually called), or else near that city, at a distance of one hundred and twenty stadia from the city of the Eleians. This, apparently, is the Ephyra which Homer calls the home of the mother of Tlepolemus the son of Heracles (for the expeditions of Heracles were in this region rather than in any of the other three) when he says, “"whom he had brought out of Ephyra, from the River Sellëeis"
”41.42 and there is no River Sellëeis near the other Ephyras. Again, he says of the corselet of Meges: “"this corselet Phyleus once brought out of Ephyra, from the River Sellëeis."
”43 And thirdly, the man-slaying drugs: for Homer says that Odysseus came to Ephyra “"in search of a man-slaying drug, that he might have wherewithal to smear his arrows"
”44; and in speaking of Telemachus the wooers say: “"or else he means to go to the fertile soil of Ephyra, that from there he may bring deadly drugs"
”45; for Nestor, in his narrative of his war against the Epeians, introduces the daughter of Augeas, the king of the Epeians, as a mixer of drugs: “"I was the first that slew a man, even the spearman Mulius; he was a son-in-law of Augeias, having married his eldest daughter, and she knew all drugs that are nourished by the wide earth."
”46 But there is another River Sellëeis near Sicyon, and near the river a village Ephyra. And in the Agraean district of Aetolia there is a village Ephyra; its inhabitants are called Ephyri. And there are still other Ephyri, I mean the branch of the Perrhaebians who live near Macedonia (the Crannonians),47 as also those Thesprotian Ephyri of Cichyrus,48 which in earlier times was called Ephyra. [6] Apollodorus, in teaching us how the poet is wont to distinguish between places of the same name, says that as the poet, in the case of Orchomenus, for instance, refers to the Arcadian Orchomenus as "abounding in flocks"49 and to the Boeotian Orchomenus as "Minyeian,"50 and refers to Samos as the Thracian Samos51 by connecting it with a neighboring island,52 “"betwixt Samos and Imbros,"
”53 in order to distinguish it from Ionian Samos—so too, Apollodorus says, the poet distinguishes the Thesprotian Ephyra both by the word "distant" and by the phrase “"from the River Sellëeis."
”5455 In this, however, Apollodorus is not in agreement with what Demetrius of Scepsis says, from whom he borrows most of his material; for Demetrius says that there is no River Sellëeis among the Thesprotians, but says that it is in the Eleian country and flows past the Ephyra there, as I have said before. In this statement, therefore, Apollodorus was in want of perception;56 as also in his statement concerning Oechalia, because, although Oechalia is the name of not merely one city, he says that there is only one city of Eurytus the Oechalian, namely, the Thessalian Oechalia, in reference to which Homer says: “"Those that held Oechalia, city of Eurytus the Oechalian."
”57 What Oechalia, pray, was it from which Thamyris had set out when, near Dorium, the Muses “"met Thamyris the Thracian and put a stop to his singing"?
”58 For Homer adds: “"as he was on his way from Oechalia, from Eurytus the Oechalian."
”59 For if it was the Thessalian Oechalia, Demetrius of Scepsis is wrong again when he says that it was a certain Arcadian Oechalia, which is now called Andania; but if Demetrius is right, Arcadian Oechalia was also called "city of Eurytus," and therefore there was not merely one Oechalia; but Apollodorus says that there was one only. [7] It was between the outlets of the Peneius and the Sellëeis, near the Scollium,60 that Pylus was situated; not the city of Nestor, but another Pylus which has nothing in common with the Alpheius, nor with the Pamisus (or Amathus, if we should call it that). Yet there are some who do violence to Homer's words, seeking to win for themselves the fame and noble lineage of Nestor; for, since history mentions three Pyluses in the Peloponnesus (as is stated in this verse: “"There is a Pylus in front of Pylus; yea, and there is still another Pylus,"
”61）62 the Pylus in question, the Lepreatic Pylus in Triphylia and Pisatis, and a third, the Messenian Pylus near Coryphasium,63 the inhabitants of each try to show that the Pylus in their own country is "emathoëis"64 and declare that it is the native place of Nestor. However, most of the more recent writers, both historians and poets, say that Nestor was a Messenian, thus adding their support to the Pylus which has been preserved down to their own times. But the writers who follow the words of Homer more closely say that the Pylus of Nestor is the Pylus through whose territory the Alpheius flows. And the Alpheius flows through Pisatis and Triphylia. However, the writers from Coele Elis have not only supported their own Pylus with a similar zeal, but have also attached to it tokens of recognition,65 pointing out a place called Gerenus, a river called Geron, and another river called Geranius, and then confidently asserting that Homer's epithet for Nestor, "Gerenian," was derived from these. But the Messenians have done the selfsame thing, and their argument appears at least more plausible; for they say that their own Gerena is better known, and that it was once a populous place. Such, then, is the present state of affairs as regards Coele Elis. [8] But when the poet divides this country into four parts and also speaks of the leaders as four in number, his statement is not clear: “"And they too that inhabited both Buprasium and goodly Elis, so much thereof as is enclosed by Hyrmine and Myrsinus on the borders, and by the Olenian Rock and Aleisium,—of these men, I say, there were four leaders, and ten swift ships followed each leader, and many Epeians embarked thereon."
”66 67 For when he speaks of both the Buprasians and the Eleians as Epeians but without going on and calling the Buprasians Eleians, it would seem that he is not dividing the Eleian country into four parts, but rather the country of the Epeians, which he had already divided into only two parts; and thus Buprasium would not be a part of Elis but rather of the country of the Epeians. For it is clear that he calls the Buprasians Epeians; "as when the Epeians were burying lord Amarynces at Buprasium."68 But Buprasium now appears to have been a territory of the Eleian country, having in it a settlement of the same name, which was also a part of Elis.69 And again, when he names the two together, saying "both Buprasium and goodly Elis," and then divides the country into four parts, it seems as though he is classifying the four parts under the general designation "both Buprasium and goodly Elis." It seems likely that at one time there was a considerable settlement by the name of Buprasium in the Eleian country which is no longer in existence (indeed, only that territory which is on the road that leads to Dyme from the present city of Elis is now so called); and one might suppose that at that time Buprasium had a certain preeminence as compared with Elis, just as the Epeians had in comparison with the Eleians; but later on the people were called Eleians instead of Epeians. And though Buprasium was a part of Elis, they say that Homer, by a sort of poetic figure, names the part with the whole, as for instance when he says: “"throughout Hellas and mid-Argos,"
”70 and “"throughout Hellas and Phthia,"
”71 and “"the Curetes fought and the Aetolians,"
”72 and “"the men of Dulichium and the holy Echinades,"
”73 for Dulichium is one of the Echinades. And more recent poets also use this figure; for instance, Hipponax, when he says: “"to those who have eaten the bread of the Cyprians and the wheaten bread of the Amathusians,"
”74 for the Amathusians are also Cyprians; and Alcman, when he says: “"when she had left lovely Cypros and seagirt Paphos"
”75 and Aeschylus,76 when he says: “"since thou dost possess the whole of Cypros and Paphos as thine allotment."
”77 But if Homer nowhere calls the Buprasians Eleians, I will say that there are many other facts also that he does not mention; yet this is no proof that they are not facts, but merely that he has not mentioned them. [9] But Hecataeus of Miletus says that the Epeians are a different people from the Eleians; that, at any rate, the Epeians joined Heracles in his expedition against Augeas and helped him to destroy both Augeas and Elis. And he says, further, that Dyme is an Epeian and an Achaean city. However, the early historians say many things that are not true, because they were accustomed to falsehoods on account of the use of myths in their writings; and on this account, too, they do not agree with one another concerning the same things. Yet it is not incredible that the Epeians, even if they were once at variance with the Eleians and belonged to a different race, later became united with the Eleians as the result of prevailing over them, and with them formed one common state; and that they prevailed even as far as Dyme. For although the poet has not named Dyme, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in his time Dyme belonged to the Epeians, and later to the Ionians, or, if not to them, at all events to the Achaeans who took possession of their country. Of the four parts, inside which Buprasium is situated, only Hyrmine and Myrsinus belong to the Eleian country, whereas the remaining two are already on the frontiers of Pisatis, as some writers think. [10] Now Hyrmine was a small town. It is no longer in existence, but near Cyllene there is a mountain promontory called Hormina or Hyrmina. Myrsinus is the present Myrtuntium, a settlement that extends down to the sea, and is situated on the road which runs from Dyme into Elis, and is seventy stadia distant from the city of the Eleians. The Olenian Rock is surmised to be what is now called Scollis;78 for we are obliged to state what is merely probable, because both the places and the names have undergone changes, and because in many cases the poet does not make himself very clear. Scollis is a rocky mountain common to the territories of the Dymaeans, the Tritaeans, and the Eleians, and borders on another Arcadian mountain called Lampeia,79 which is one hundred and thirty stadia distant from Elis, one hundred from Tritaea, and the same from Dyme; the last two are Achaean cities. Aleisium is the present Alesiaeum, a territory in the neighborhood of Amphidolis,80 in which the people of the surrounding country hold a monthly market. It is situated on the mountain road that runs from Elis to Olympia. In earlier times it was a city of Pisatis, for the boundaries have varied at different times on account of the change of rulers. The poet also calls Aleisium "Hill of Aleisium," when he says: “"until we caused our horses to set foot on Buprasium, rich in wheat, and on the Olenian Rock, and of Aleisium where is the place called Hill"
”81(we must interpret the words as a case of hyperbaton, that is, as equivalent to "and where is the place called Hill of Aleisium"). Some writers point also to a river Aleisius. [11] Since certain people in Triphylia near Messenia are called Cauconians, and since Dyme also is called Cauconian by some writers, and since in the Dymaean territory between Dyme and Tritaea there is also a river which is called Caucon, in the feminine gender, writers raise the question whether there are not two different sets of Cauconians, one in the region of Triphylia, and the other in the region of Dyme, Elis, and the River Caucon. This river empties into another river which is called Teutheas, in the masculine gender; Teutheas has the same name as one of the little towns which were incorporated into Dyme, except that the name of this town, "Teuthea," is in the feminine gender, and is spelled without the s and with the last syllable long. In this town is the temple of the Nemydian 82 Artemis. The Teutheas empties into the Acheloüs which flows by Dyme83 and has the same name as the Acarnanian river. It is also called the "Peirus"; by Hesiod, for instance, when he says: “"he dwelt on the Olenian Rock along the banks of a river, wide Peirus."
”84Some change the reading to "Pierus," wrongly. They raise that question about the Cauconians, they say, because, when Athene in the guise of Mentor, in the Odyssey says to Nestor, “"but in the morning I will go to the great-hearted Cauconians, where a debt is due me, in no way new or small. But do thou send this man on his way with a chariot and with thy son, since he has come to thy house, and give him horses,"
”85the poet seems to designate a certain territory in the country of the Epeians which was held by the Cauconians, these Cauconians being a different set from those in Triphylia and perhaps extending as far as the territory of Dyme. Indeed, one should not fail to inquire both into the origin of the epithet of Dyme, "Cauconian," and into the origin of the name of the river "Caucon," because the question who those Cauconians were to whom Athene says she is going in order to recover the debt offers a problem; for if we should interpret the poet as meaning the Cauconians in Triphylia near Lepreum, I do not see how his account can be plausible. Hence some read: “"where a debt is due me in goodly Elis, no small one."
”86 But this question will be investigated with clearer results when I describe the country that comes next after this, I mean Pisatis and Triphylia as far as the borders of the country of the Messenians.87 [12] After Chelonatas comes the long seashore of the Pisatans; and then Cape Pheia. And there was also a small town called Pheia: “"beside the walls of Pheia, about the streams of Iardanus,"
”88for there is also a small river nearby. According to some, Pheia is the beginning of Pisatis. Off Pheia lie a little island and a harbor, from which the nearest distance from the sea to Olympia is one hundred and twenty stadia. Then comes another cape, Ichthys, which, like Chelonatas, projects for a considerable distance towards the west; and from it the distance to Cephallenia is again one hundred and twenty stadia. Then comes the mouth of the Alpheius, which is distant two hundred and eighty stadia from Chelonatas, and five hundred and forty five from Araxus. It flows from the same regions as the Eurotas, that is, from a place called Asea, a village in the territory of Megalopolis, where there are two springs near one another from which the rivers in question flow. They sink and flow beneath the earth for many stadia89 and then rise again; and then they flow down, one into Laconia and the other into Pisatis. The stream of the Eurotas reappears where the district called Bleminatis begins, and then flows past Sparta itself, traverses a long glen near Helus (a place mentioned by the poet), 90 and empties between Gythium, the naval station of Sparta, and Acraea. But the Alpheius, after receiving the waters of the Ladon, the Erymanthus, and other rivers of less significance, flows through Phrixa, Pisatis, and Triphylia past Olympia itself to the Sicilian Sea, into which it empties between Pheia and Epitalium. Near the outlet of the river is the sacred precinct of Artemis Alpheionia or Alpheiusa (for the epithet is spelled both ways), which is about eighty stadia distant from Olympia. An annual festival is also celebrated at Olympia in honor of this goddess as well as in honor of Artemis Elaphia and Artemis Daphnia. The whole country is full of temples of Artemis, Aphrodite, and the Nymphs, being situated in sacred precincts that are generally full of flowers because of the abundance of water. And there are also numerous shrines of Hermes on the roadsides, and temples of Poseidon on the capes. In the temple of Artemis Alpheionia are very famous paintings by two Corinthians, Cleanthes and Aregon: by Cleanthes the "Capture of Troy" and the "Birth of Athene," and by Aregon the "Artemis Borne Aloft on a Griffin." [13] Then comes the mountain of Triphylia that separates Macistia from Pisatis; then another river called Chalcis, and a spring called Cruni, and a settlement called Chalcis, and, after these, Samicum, where is the most highly revered temple of the Samian Poseidon. About the temple is a sacred precinct full of wild olive trees. The people of Macistum used to have charge over it; and it was they, too, who used to proclaim the armistice day called "Samian." But all the Triphylians contribute to the maintenance of the temple. [14] In the general neighborhood of these temples, above the sea, at a distance of thirty stadia or slightly more, is situated the Triphylian Pylus, also called the Lepreatic Pylus, which Homer calls "emathöeis"91 and transmits to posterity as the fatherland of Nestor, as one might infer from his words, whether it be that the river that flows past Pylus towards the north (now called Mamaüs, or Arcadicus) was called Amathus in earlier times, so that Pylus got its epithet "emathöeis" from "Amathus," or that this river was called Pamisus, the same as two rivers in Messenia, and that the derivation of the epithet of the city is uncertain; for it is false, they say, that either the river or the country about it is "amathodes."92 And also the temple of Athene Scilluntia at Scillus, in the neighborhood of Olympia near Phellon,93 is one of the famous temples. Near Pylus, towards the east, is a mountain named after Minthe, who, according to myth, became the concubine of Hades, was trampled under foot by Core, and was transformed into garden-mint, the plant which some call Hedyosmos.94 Furthermore, near the mountain is a precinct sacred to Hades, which is revered by the Macistians too,95 and also a grove sacred to Demeter, which is situated above the Pylian plain. This plain is fertile; it borders on the sea and stretches along the whole distance between Samicum and the River Neda. But the shore of the sea is narrow and sandy, so that one could not refuse to believe that Pylus got its epithet "emathöeis" therefrom. [15] Towards the north, on the borders of Pylus, were two little Triphylian cities, Hypana and Tympaneae; the former of these was incorporated into Elis, whereas the latter remained as it was. And further, two rivers flow near these places, the Dalion and the Acheron, both of them emptying into the Alpheius. The Acheron has been so named by virtue of its close relation to Hades; for, as we know, not only the temples of Demeter and Core have been held in very high honor there, but also those of Hades, perhaps because of "the contrariness of the soil," to use the phrase of Demetrius of Scepsis. For while Triphylia brings forth good fruit, it breeds red-rust and produces rush; and therefore in this region it is often the case that instead of a large crop there is no crop at all. [16] To the south of Pylus is Lepreum. This city, too, was situated above the sea, at a distance of forty stadia; and between Lepreum and the Annius96 is the temple of the Samian Poseidon, at a distance of one hundred stadia from each. This is the temple at which the poet says Telemachus found the Pylians performing the sacrifice: “"And they came to Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus; and the people were doing sacrifice on the seashore, slaying bulls that were black all over, to the dark-haired Earth-shaker."
”97Now it is indeed allowable for the poet even to fabricate what is not true, but when practicable he should adapt his words to what is true and preserve his narrative; but the more appropriate thing was to abstain from what was not true. The Lepreatans held a fertile territory; and that of the Cyparissians bordered on it. Both these districts were taken and held by the Cauconians; and so was the Macistus (by some called Platanistus). The name of the town is the same as that of the territory. It is said that there is a tomb of Caucon in the territory of Lepreum—whether Caucon was a progenitor of the tribe or one who for some other reason had the same name as the tribe. [17] There are several accounts of the Cauconians; for it is said that, like the Pelasgians, they were an Arcadian tribe, and, again like the Pelasgians, that they were a wandering tribe. At any rate, the poet98 tells us that they came to Troy as allies of the Trojans. But he does not say whence they come, though they seem to have come from Paphlagonia; for in Paphlagonia there is a people called Cauconiatae whose territory borders on that of the Mariandyni, who are themselves Paphlagonians. But I shall speak of them at greater length when I come to my description of that region.99 At present I must add the following to my account of the Cauconians in Triphylia. Some say that the whole of what is. now called Eleia, from Messenia as far as Dyme, was called Cauconia. Antimachus, at any rate, calls all the inhabitants both Epeians and Cauconians. Others, however, say that the Cauconians did not occupy the whole of Eleia, but lived there in two separate divisions, one division in Triphylia near Messenia, and the other in Buprasis and Coele Elis near Dyme. And Aristotle has knowledge of their having been established at this latter place especially.100 And in fact the last view agrees better with what Homer says, and furnishes a solution of the question asked above,101 for in this view it is assumed that Nestor lived in the Triphylian Pylus, and that the parts towards the south and east (that is, the parts that are contiguous to Messenia and the Laconian country) were subject to him; and these parts were held by the Cauconians, so that if one went by land from Pylus to Lacedaemon his journey necessarily must have been made through the territory of the Cauconians; and yet the temple of the Samian Poseidon and the mooring-place near it, where Telemachus landed, lie off towards the northwest. So then, if the Cauconians live only here, the account of the poet is not conserved; for instance, Athene, according to Sotades, bids Nestor to send Telemachus to Lacedaemon "with chariot and son" to the parts that lie towards the east, and yet she says that she herself will go to the ship to spend the night, towards the west, and back the same way she came, and she goes on to say that "in the morning" she will go “"amongst the great-hearted Cauconians"
”102to collect a debt, that is, she will go forward again. How, pray? For Nestor might have said: "But the Cauconians are my subjects and live near the road that people travel to Lacedaemon. Why, therefore, do you not travel with Telemachus and his companions instead of going back the same way you came?" And at the same time it would have been proper for one who was going to people subject to Nestor to collect a debt—"no small debt," as she says—to request aid from Nestor, if there should be any unfairness (as is usually the case) in connection with the contract; but this she did not do. If, then, the Cauconians lived only there, the result would be absurd; but if some of the Cauconians had been separated from the rest and had gone to the regions near Dyme in Eleia, then Athene would be speaking of her journey thither, and there would no longer be anything incongruous either in her going down to the ship or in her withdrawing from the company of travellers, because their roads lay in opposite directions. And similarly, too, the puzzling questions raised in regard to Pylus may find an appropriate solution when, a little further on in my chorography, I reach the Messenian Pylus. [18] A part of the inhabitants of Triphylia were called Paroreatae; they occupied mountains, in the neighborhood of Lepreum and Macistum, that reach down to the sea near the Samian Poseidium.103 [19] At the base of these mountains, on the seaboard, are two caves. One is the cave of the nymphs called Anigriades; the other is the scene of the stories of the daughters of Atlas104 and of the birth of Dardanus. And here, too, are the sacred precincts called the Ionaeum and the Eurycydeium. Samicum 105 is now only a fortress, though formerly there was also a city which was called Samus, perhaps because of its lofty situation; for they used to call lofty places "Samoi." And perhaps Samicum was the acropolis of Arene, which the poet mentions in the Catalogue: “"And those who dwelt in Pylus and lovely Arene."
”106For while they cannot with certainty discover Arene anywhere, they prefer to conjecture that this is its site; and the neighboring River Anigrus, formerly called Minyeius, gives no slight indication of the truth of the conjecture, for the poet says: “"And there is a River Minyeius which falls into the sea near Arene."
”Hom. Il. 11.722 For near the cave of the nymphs called Anigriades is a spring which makes the region that lies below it swampy and marshy. The greater part of the water is received by the Anigrus, a river so deep and so sluggish that it forms a marsh; and since the region is muddy, it emits an offensive odor for a distance of twenty stadia, and makes the fish unfit to eat.107 In the mythical accounts, however, this is attributed by some writers to the fact that certain of the Centaurs here washed off the poison they got from the Hydra, and by others to the fact that Melampus used these cleansing waters for the purification of the Proetides.108 The bathing-water from here cures leprosy, elephantiasis, and scabies. It is said, also, that the Alpheius was so named from its being a cure for leprosy. At any rate, since both the sluggishness of the Anigrus and the backwash from the sea give fixity rather than current to its waters, it was called the "Minyeius" in earlier times, so it is said, though some have perverted the name and made it "Minteius"109 instead. But the word has other sources of derivation, either from the people who went forth with Chloris, the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus, or from the Minyans, who, being descendants of the Argonauts, were first driven out of Lemnos into Lacedaemon, and thence into Triphylia, and took up their abode about Arene in the country which is now called Hypaesia, though it no longer has the settlements of the Minyans. Some of these Minyans sailed with Theras, the son of Autesion, who was a descendant of Polyneices, to the island110 which is situated between Cyrenaea and Crete (“"Calliste its earlier name, but Thera its later,"
”111as Callimachus says), and founded Thera, the mother-city of Cyrene, and designated the island by the same name as the city. [20] Between the Anigrus and the mountain from which it flows are to be seen the meadow and tomb of Iardanus, and also the Achaeae, which are abrupt cliffs of that same mountain above which, as I was saying,112 the city Samus was situated. However, Samus is not mentioned at all by the writers of the Circumnavigations—perhaps because it had long since been torn down and perhaps also because of its position; for the Poseidium is a sacred precinct, as I have said,113 near the sea, and above it is situated a lofty hill which is in front of the Samicum of today, on the site of which Samus once stood, and therefore Samus was not visible from the sea. Here, too, is a plain called Samicum; and from this one might get more conclusive proof that there was once a city called Samus. And further, the poem entitled Rhadine (of which Stesichorus is reputed to be the author), which begins, “"Come, thou clear-voiced Muse, Erato, begin thy song, voicing to the tune of thy lovely lyre the strain of the children of Samus,"
”114refers to the children of the Samus in question; for Rhadine, who had been betrothed to a tyrant of Corinth, the author says, set sail from Samus (not meaning, of course, the Ionian Samus) while the west wind was blowing, and with the same wind her brother, he adds, went to Delphi as chief of an embassy; and her cousin, who was in love with her, set out for Corinth in his chariot to visit her. And the tyrant killed them both and sent their bodies away on a chariot, but repented, recalled the chariot, and buried their bodies. [21] From this Pylus and Lepreum to the Messenian Pylus and Coryphasium (a fortress situated on the sea) and to the adjacent island Sphagia,115 the distance is about four hundred stadia; from the Alpheius seven hundred and fifty; and from Chelonatas one thousand and thirty. In the intervening space are both the temple of the Macistian Heracles and the Acidon River. The Acidon flows past the tomb of Iardanus and past Chaa—a city that was once in existence near Lepreum, where is also the Aepasian Plain. It was for the possession of this Chaa, some say, that the war between the Arcadians and Pylians, of which Homer tells us, arose in a dispute; and they think that one should write, “"Would that I were in the bloom of my youth, as when the Pylians and the Arcadians gathered together and fought at the swift-flowing Acidon, beside the walls of Chaa"
”116—instead of "Celadon" and "Pheia";117 for this region, they say, is nearer than the other to the tomb of Iardanus and to the country of the Arcadians. [22] Cyparissia is on the Triphylian Sea, and so are Pyrgi, and the Acidon and Neda Rivers.118 At the present time the stream of the Neda is the boundary between Triphylia and Messenia (an impetuous stream that comes down from Lycaeus, an Arcadian mountain, out of a spring, which, according to the myth, Rhea, after she had given birth to Zeus, caused to break forth in order to have water to bathe in); and it flows past Phigalia, opposite the place where the Pyrgetans, last of the Triphylians, border on the Cyparissians, first of the Messenians; but in the early times the division between the two countries was different, so that some of the territories across the Neda were subject to Nestor—not only Cyparissëeis, but also some other parts on the far side. Just so, too, the poet prolongs the Pylian Sea as far as the seven cities which Agamemnon promised to Achilles: “"and all are situated near the sea of sandy Pylus;"
”119120 for this phrase is equivalent to "near the Pylian Sea." [23] Be that as it may, next in order after sailing past Cyparissëeis towards the Messenian Pylus and Coryphasium one comes to Erana, which some wrongly think was in earlier times called Arene by the same name as the Pylian Arene, and also to Cape Platamodes, from which the distance to Coryphasium and to what is now called Pylus is one hundred stadia. Here, too, is a small island, Prote, and on it a town of the same name. Perhaps I would not be examining at such length things that are ancient, and would be content merely to tell in detail how things now are, if there were not connected with these matters legends that have been taught us from boyhood; and since different men say different things, I must act as arbiter. In general, it is the most famous, the oldest, and the most experienced men who are believed; and since it is Homer who has surpassed all others in these respects, I must likewise both inquire into his words and compare them with things as they now are, as I was saying a little while ago.121 [24] I have already122 inquired into Homer's words concerning Coele Elis and Buprasium. Concerning the country that was subject to Nestor, Homer speaks as follows: “"And those who dwelt in Pylus and lovely Arene and Thryum, fording-place of the Alpheius, and well-built Aepy, and also those who were inhabitants of Cyparissëeis and Amphigeneia and Pteleus and Helus and Dorium, at which place the Muses met Thamyris the Thracian, and put a stop to his singing while he was on his way from Oechalia from Eurytus the Oechalian."
”123It is Pylus, then, with which our investigation is concerned, and about it we shall make inquiry presently. About Arene I have already spoken.124 The city which the poet now calls Thryum he elsewhere calls Thryoessa: “"There is a certain city, Thryoessa, a steep hill, far away on the Alpheius."
”125He calls it "fording-place of the Alpheius" because the river could be crossed on foot, as it seems, at this place. But it is now called Epitalium (a small place in Macistia). As for "well-built Aepy," some raise the question which of the two words is the epithet and which is the city, and whether it is the Margalae of today, in Amphidolia. Now Margalae is not a natural stronghold, but another place is pointed out which is a natural stronghold, in Macistia. The man, therefore, who suspects that the latter place is meant by Homer calls the name of the city "Aepy"126 from what is actually the case in nature (compare Helus,127 Aegialus,128 and several other names of places); whereas the man who suspects that "Margala" is meant does the reverse perhaps. 129 Thryum,130 or Thryoessa, they say, is Epitalium, because the whole of this country is full of rushes, particularly the rivers; and this is still more conspicuous at the fordable places of the stream. But perhaps, they say, Homer called the ford "Thryum" and called Epitalium "well-built Aepy"; for Epitalium is fortified by nature. And in fact he speaks of a "steep hill" in other places: “"There is a certain city, Thryoessa, a steep hill, far away on the Alpheius, last city of sandy Pylus."
”131 [25] Cyparissëeis is in the neighborhood of the Macistia of earlier times (when Macistia still extended across the Neda), but it is no longer inhabited, as is also the case with Macistum. But there is another, the Messenian Cyparissia; it, too, is now called by the same name as the Macistian and in like manner, namely, Cyparissia, in the singular number and in the feminine gender,132 whereas only the river is now called Cyparissëeis. And Amphigeneia, also, is in Macistia, in the neighborhood of the Hypsöeis River, where is the temple of Leto. Pteleum was a settlement of the colony from the Thessalian Pteleum, for, as Homer tells us, there was a Pteleum in Thessaly too: “"and Antrum, near the sea, and grassy Pteleum;"
”133but now it is a woody, uninhabited place, and is called Pteleasium. As for Helus, some call it a territory in the neighborhood of the Alpheius, while others go on to call it a city, as they do the Laconian Helus: “"and Helus, a city near the sea;"
”134but others call it a marsh,135 the marsh in the neighborhood of Alorium, where is the temple of the Heleian Artemis, whose worship was under the management of the Arcadians, for this people had the priesthood. As for Dorium, some call it a mountain, while others call it a plain, but nothing is now to be seen; and yet by some the Aluris of today, or Alura, situated in what is called the Aulon of Messenia, is called Dorium. And somewhere in this region is also the Oechalia of Eurytus (the Andania of today, a small Arcadian town, with the same name as the towns in Thessaly and Euboea), whence, according to the poet, Thamyris the Thracian came to Dorium and was deprived of the art of singing. [26] From these facts, then, it is clear that the country subject to Nestor, all of which the poet calls "land of the Pylians," extends on each side of the Alpheius; but the Alpheius nowhere touches either Messenia or Coele Elis. For the fatherland of Nestor is in this country which we call Triphylian, or Arcadian, or Leprean, Pylus. And the truth is that, whereas the other places called Pylus are to be seen on the sea, this Pylus is more than thirty stadia above the sea—a fact that is also clear from the verses of Homer, for, in the first place, a messenger is sent to the boat after the companions of Telemachus to invite them to an entertainment, and, secondly, Telemachus on his return from Sparta does not permit Peisistratus to drive to the city, but urges him to turn aside towards the ship, knowing that the road towards the city is not the same as that towards the place of anchorage. And thus the return voyage of Telemachus might be spoken of appropriately in these words: “"And they went past Cruni136 and fair-flowing Chalcis.137 And the sun set and all the ways grew dark; and the ship, rejoicing in the breeze of Zeus, drew near to Phea, and on past goodly Elis, where the Epeians hold sway."
”138Thus far, then, the voyage is towards the north, but thence it bends in the direction of the east. That is, the ship abandons the voyage that was set out upon at first and that led straight to Ithaca, because there the wooers had set the ambush “"in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos."
”139“"And thence again he steered for the islands that are thoai;"
”140but by "thoai" the poet means the islands that are "pointed."141 These belong to the Echinades group and are near the beginning of the Corinthian Gulf and the outlets of the Acheloüs. Again, after passing by Ithaca far enough to put it south of him, Telemachus turns round towards the proper course between Acarnania and Ithaca and makes his landing on the other side of the island—not at the Cephallenian strait which was being guarded by the wooers.142 [27] At any rate, if one should conceive the notion that the Eleian Pylus is the Pylus of Nestor, the poet could not appropriately say that the ship, after putting to sea from there, was carried past Cruni and Chalcis before sunset, then drew near to Phea by night, and then sailed past Eleia; for these places are to the south of Eleia: first, Phea, then Chalcis, then Cruni, and then the Triphylian Pylus and Samicum. This, then, would be the voyage for one who is sailing towards the south from Eleian Pylus, whereas one who is sailing towards the north, where Ithaca is, leaves all these parts behind him, and also must sail past Eleia itself—and that before sunset, though the poet says after sunset. And further, if one should go on to make a second supposition, that the Messenian Pylus and Coryphasium are the beginning of the voyage from Nestor's, the distance would be considerable and would require more time. At any rate, merely the distance to Triphylian Pylus and the Samian Poseidium is four hundred stadia; and the first part of the coasting-voyage is not "past Cruni and Chalcis" and Phea (names of obscure rivers, or rather creeks), but past the Neda; then past the Acidon; and then past the Alpheius and the intervening places. And on this supposition those other places should have been mentioned later, for the voyage was indeed made past them too. [28] Furthermore, the detailed account which Nestor recites to Patroclus concerning the war that took place between the Pylians and the Eleians pleads for what I have been trying to prove, if one observes the verses of the poet. For in them the poet says that, since Heracles had ravaged the Pylian country to the extent that all the youth were slain143 and that of all the twelve sons of Neleus only Nestor, then in his earliest youth,144 had been left,145 and since the Epeians had conceived a contempt for Neleus because of his old age and lack of defenders, they began to treat the Pylians in an arrogant and wanton manner. So, in return for this treatment, Nestor gathered together all he could of the people of his homeland, made an attack, he says, upon Eleia, and herded together very much booty, “"fifty herds of cattle, and as many flocks of sheep, and as many droves of swine,"
”146and also as many herds of goats, and one hundred and fifty sorrel mares, most of them with foals beneath them. “"And these," he says, "we drove within Neleian Pylus, to the city, in the night,"
”147meaning, first, that it was in the daytime that the driving away of the booty and the rout of those who came to the rescue took place (when he says he killed Itymoneus), and, secondly, that it was in the nighttime that the return took place, so that it was night when they arrived at the city. And while the Pylians were busied with the distribution of the booty and with offering sacrifice, the Epeians, on the third day,148 after assembling in numbers, both footmen and horsemen, came forth in their turn against the Pylians and encamped around Thryum, which is situated on the Alpheius River. And when the Pylians learned this, they forthwith set out to the rescue; they passed the night in the neighborhood of the Minyeius River near Arene, and thence arrived at the Alpheius "in open sky," that is, at midday. And after they offered sacrifice to the gods and passed the night near the river, they joined battle at early dawn; and after the rout took place, they did not stop pursuing and slaying the enemy until they set foot on Buprasium “"and on the Olenian Rock and where is the place called Hill of Aleisium,149 whence Athene turned the people back again;"
”150and a little further on the poet says: “"But the Achaeans drove back their swift horses from Buprasium to Pylus."
”151 [29] From all this, then, how could one suppose that either the Eleian or Messenian Pylus is meant? Not the Eleian Pylus, because, if this Pylus was being ravaged by Heracles, the country of the Epeians was being ravaged by him at the same time; but this is the Eleian country. How, pray, could a people whose country had been ravaged at the same time and were of the same stock, have acquired such arrogance and wantonness towards a people who had been wronged at the same time? And how could they overrun and plunder their own homeland? And how could both Augeas and Neleus be rulers of the same people at the same time if they were personal enemies? If to Neleus “"a great debt was owing in goodly Elis. Four horses, prize-winners, with their chariots, had come to win prizes and were to run for a tripod; but these Augeas, lord of men, detained there, though he sent away the driver."
”152And if this is where Neleus lived, Nestor too must have lived there. How, pray, could the poet say of the Eleians and the Buprasians, “"there were four rulers of them, and ten swift ships followed each man, and many Epeians embarked "
”153?And the country, too, was divided into four parts; yet Nestor ruled over no one of these, but over them “"that dwelt in Pylus and in lovely Arene,"
”154and over the places that come after these as far as Messene. Again, how could the Epeians, who in their turn went forth to attack the Pylians, set out for the Alpheius and Thryum? And how, after the battle took place, after they were routed, could they flee towards Buprasium? And again, if it was the Messenian Pylus which Heracles had ravaged, how could a people so far distant as the Epeians act wantonly towards them, and how could the Epeians have been involved in numerous contracts with them and have defaulted these by cancelling them, so that the war resulted on that account? And how could Nestor, when he went forth to plunder the country, when he herded together booty consisting of both swine and cattle, none of which could travel fast or far, have accomplished a journey of more than one thousand stadia to that Pylus which is near Coryphasium? Yet on the third day they all155 came to Thryoessa and the River Alpeius to besiege the stronghold! And how could these places belong to those who were in power in Messenia, when they were held by Cauconians and Triphylians and Pisatans? And as for Gerena, or Gerenia (for the word is spelled both ways), perhaps some people named it that to suit a purpose, though it is also possible that the place was by chance so named.156 And, in general, since Messenia was classified157 as subject to Menalaüs, as was also the Laconian country (as will be clear from what I shall say later),158 and since the Pamisus and the Nedon flow through Messenia, whereas the Alpheius nowhere touches it (the Alpheius “"that floweth in broad stream through the land of the Pylians,"
”159over which Nestor ruled), what plausibility could there be in an account which lands Nestor in a foreign realm and robs him of the cities that are attributed to him in the Catalogue,160 and thus makes everything subject to Menelaüs? [30] It remains for me to tell about Olympia, and how everything fell into the hands of the Eleians. The temple is in Pisatis, less than three hundred stadia distant from Elis. In front of the temple is situated a grove of wild olive trees, and the stadium is in this grove. Past the temple flows the Alpheius, which, rising in Arcadia, flows between the west and the south into the Triphylian Sea. At the outset the temple got fame on account of the oracle of the Olympian Zeus; and yet, after the oracle failed to respond, the glory of the temple persisted none the less, and it received all that increase of fame of which we know, on account both of the festal assembly and of the Olympian Games, in which the prize was a crown and which were regarded as sacred, the greatest games in the world. The temple was adorned by its numerous offerings, which were dedicated there from all parts of Greece. Among these was the Zeus of beaten gold dedicated by Cypselus the tyrant of Corinth. But the greatest of these was the image of Zeus made by Pheidias of Athens, son of Charmides; it was made of ivory, and it was so large that, although the temple was very large, the artist is thought to have missed the proper symmetry, for he showed Zeus seated but almost touching the roof with his head, thus making the impression that if Zeus arose and stood erect he would unroof the temple. Certain writers have recorded the measurements of the image, and Callimachus has set them forth in an iambic poem. Panaenus the painter, who was the nephew and collaborator of Pheidias, helped him greatly in decorating the image, particularly the garments, with colors. And many wonderful paintings, works of Panaenus, are also to be seen round the temple. It is related of Pheidias that, when Panaenus asked him after what model he was going to make the likeness of Zeus, he replied that he was going to make it after the likeness set forth by Homer in these words: “"Cronion spoke, and nodded assent with his dark brows, and then the ambrosial locks flowed streaming from the lord's immortal head, and he caused great Olympus to quake."
”161A noble description indeed, as appears not only from the "brows" but from the other details in the passage, because the poet provokes our imagination to conceive the picture of a mighty personage and a mighty power worthy of a Zeus, just as he does in the case of Hera, at the same time preserving what is appropriate in each; for of Hera he says, “"she shook herself upon the throne, and caused lofty Olympus to quake."
”162What in her case occurred when she moved her whole body, resulted in the case of Zeus when he merely "nodded with his brows," although his hair too was somewhat affected at the same time. This, too, is a graceful saying about the poet, that "he alone has seen, or else he alone has shown, the likenesses of the gods." The Eleians above all others are to be credited both with the magnificence of the temple and with the honor in which it was held. In the times of the Trojan war, it is true, or even before those times, they were not a prosperous people, since they had been humbled by the Pylians, and also, later on, by Heracles when Augeas their king was overthrown. The evidence is this: The Eleians sent only forty ships to Troy, whereas the Pylians and Nestor sent ninety. But later on, after the return of the Heracleidae, the contrary was the case, for the Aetolians, having returned with the Heracleidae under the leadership of Oxylus, and on the strength of ancient kinship having taken up their abode with the Epeians, enlarged Coele Elis, and not only seized much of Pisatis but also got Olympia under their power. What is more, the Olympian Games are an invention of theirs; and it was they who celebrated the first Olympiads, for one should disregard the ancient stories both of the founding of the temple and of the establishment of the games—some alleging that it was Heracles, one of the Idaean Dactyli,163 who was the originator of both, and others, that it was Heracles the son of Alcmene and Zeus, who also was the first to contend in the games and win the victory; for such stories are told in many ways, and not much faith is to be put in them. It is nearer the truth to say that from the first Olympiad, in which the Eleian Coroebus won the stadium-race, until the twenty.sixth Olympiad, the Eleians had charge both of the temple and of the games. But in the times of the Trojan War, either there were no games in which the prize was a crown or else they were not famous, neither the Olympian nor any other of those that are now famous.164 In the first place, Homer does not mention any of these, though he mentions another kind—funeral games.165 And yet some think that he mentions the Olympian Games when he says that Augeas deprived the driver of "four horses, prize-winners, that had come to win prizes."166 And they say that the Pisatans took no part in the Trojan War because they were regarded as sacred to Zeus. But neither was the Pisatis in which Olympia is situated subject to Augeas at that time, but only the Eleian country, nor were the Olympian Games celebrated even once in Eleia, but always in Olympia. And the games which I have just cited from Homer clearly took place in Elis, where the debt was owing: “"for a debt was owing to him in goodly Elis, four horses, prize-winners."
”167And these were not games in which the prize was a crown (for the horses were to run for a tripod), as was the case at Olympia. After the twenty-sixth Olympiad, when they had got back their homeland, the Pisatans themselves went to celebrating the games because they saw that these were held in high esteem. But in later times Pisatis again fell into the power of the Eleians, and thus again the direction of the games fell to them. The Lacedaemonians also, after the last defeat of the Messenians, cooperated with the Eleians, who had been their allies in battle, whereas the Arcadians and the descendants of Nestor had done the opposite, having joined with the Messenians in war. And the Lacedaemonians cooperated with them so effectually that the whole country as far as Messene came to be called Eleia, and the name has persisted to this day, whereas, of the Pisatans, the Triphylians, and the Cauconians, not even a name has survived. Further, the Eleians settled the inhabitants of "sandy Pylus" itself in Lepreum,168 to gratify the Lepreatans, who had been victorious in a war,169 and they broke up many other settlements,170 and also exacted tribute of as many a they saw inclined to act independently. [31] Pisatis first became widely famous on account of its rulers, who were most powerful: they were Oenomaüs, and Pelops who succeeded him, and the numerous sons of the latter. And Salmoneus,171 too, is said to have reigned there; at any rate, one of the eight cities into which Pisatis is divided is called Salmone. So for these reasons, as well as on account of the temple at Olympia, the country has gained wide repute. But one should listen to the old accounts with reserve, knowing that they are not very commonly accepted; for the later writers hold new views about many things and even tell the opposite of the old accounts, as when they say that Augeas ruled over Pisatis, but Oenomaüs and Salmoneus over Eleia; and some writers combine the two tribes into one. But in general one should follow only what is commonly accepted. Indeed, the writers do not even agree as to the derivation of the name Pisatis; for some derive it from a city Pisa, which bears the same name as the spring; the spring, they say, was called "Pisa," the equivalent of "pistra," that is "potistra"; 172 and they point out the site of the city on a lofty place between Ossa and Olympus, two mountains that bear the same name as those in Thessaly. But some say that there was no city by the name of Pisa (for if there had been, it would have been one of the eight cities), but only a spring, now called Pisa, near Cicysium, the largest of the eight cities; and Stesichorus, they explain, uses the term "city" for the territory called Pisa, just as Homer calls Lesbos the "city of Macar";173 so Euripides in his Ion, “"there is Euboea, a neighboring city to Athens;"
”174 and in his Rhadamanthys, “"who hold the Euboean land, a neighboring city;"
”175 and Sophocles in his Mysians,176 “"The whole country, stranger, is called Asia, but the city of the Mysians is called Mysia."
”177 [32] Salmone is situated near the spring of that name from which flows the Enipeus River. The river empties into the Alpheius, and is now called the Barnichius.178 It is said that Tyro fell in love with Enipeus: “"She loved a river, the divine Enipeus."
”179180 For there, it is said, her father Salmoneus reigned, just as Euripides also says in his Aeolus.181 Some write the name of the river in Thessaly "Eniseus"; it flows from Mount Othrys, and receives the Apidanus, which flows down out of Pharsalus.182 Near Salmone is Heracleia, which is also one of the eight cities; it is about forty stadia distant from Olympia and is situated on the Cytherius River, where is the temple of the Ioniades Nymphs, who have been believed to cure diseases with their waters.183 Near Olympia is Arpina,184 also one of the eight cities, through which185 flows the River Parthenias, 186 on the road that leads up to Pheraea. Pheraea is in Arcadia, and it is situated above Dymaea and Buprasium and Elis, that is, to the north of Pisatis187 Here, too, is Cicysium, one of the eight cities; and also Dyspontium, which is situated in a plain and on the road that leads from Elis to Olympia; but it was destroyed, and most of its inhabitants emigrated to Epidamnus and Apollonia. Pholoe, an Arcadian mountain, is also situated above Olympia, and very close to it, so that its foothills are in Pisatis. Both the whole of Pisatis and most parts of Triphylia border on Arcadia; and on this account most of the Pylian districts mentioned in the Catalogue188 are thought to be Arcadian; the well-informed, however, deny this, for they say that the Erymanthus, one of the rivers that empty into the Alpheius, forms a boundary of Arcadia and that the districts in question are situated outside that river.189 [33] Ephorus says that Aetolus, after he had been driven by Salmoneus, the king of the Epeians and the Pisatans, out of Eleia into Aetolia, named the country after himself and also united the cities there under one metropolis; and Oxylus, a descendant of Aetolus and a friend of Temenus and the Heracleidae who accompanied him, acted as their guide on their way back to the Peloponnesus, and apportioned among them that part of the country which was hostile to them, and in general made suggestions regarding the conquest of the country; and in return for all this he received as a favor the permission to return to Eleia, his ancestral land; and he collected an army and returned from Aetolia to attack the Epeians who were in possession of Elis; but when the Epeians met them with arms,190 and it was found that the two forces were evenly matched, Pyraechmes the Aetolian and Degmenus the Epeian, in accordance with an ancient custom of the Greeks, advanced to single combat. Degmenus was lightly armed with a bow, thinking that he would easily overcome a heavy-armed opponent at long range, but Pyraechmes armed himself with a sling and a bag of stones, after he had noticed his opponent's ruse (as it happened, the sling had only recently been invented by the Aetolians); and since the sling had longer range, Degmenus fell, and the Aetolians drove out the Epeians and took possession of the land; and they also assumed the superintendence, then in the hands of the Achaeans, of the temple at Olympia; and because of the friendship of Oxylus with the Heracleidae, a sworn agreement was promptly made by all that Eleia should be sacred to Zeus, and that whoever invaded that country with arms should he under a curse, and that whoever did not defend it to the extent of his power should be likewise under a curse; consequently those who later founded the city of the Eleians left it without a wall, and those who go through the country itself with an army give up their arms and then get them back again after they have passed out of its borders; and Iphitus celebrated 191 the Olympian Games, the Eleians now being a sacred people; for these reasons the people flourished, for whereas the other peoples were always at war with one another, the Eleians alone had profound peace, not only they, but their alien residents as well, and so for this reason their country became the most populous of all; but Pheidon the Argive, who was the tenth in descent from Temenus and surpassed all men of his time in ability (whereby he not only recovered the whole inheritance of Temenus, which had been broken up into several parts, but also invented the measures called "Pheidonian,"192 and weights, and coinage struck from silver and other metals)—Pheidon, I say, in addition to all this, also attacked the cities that had been captured previously by Heracles, and claimed for himself the right to celebrate all the games that Heracles had instituted. And he said that the Olympian Games were among these; and so he invaded Eleia and celebrated the games himself, the Eleians, because of the Peace, having no arms wherewith to resist him, and all the others being under his domination; however, the Eleians did not record this celebration in their public register, but because of his action they also procured arms and began to defend themselves; and the Lacedaemonians cooperated with them, either because they envied them the prosperity which they had enjoyed on account of the peace, or because they thought that they would have them as allies in destroying the power of Pheidon, for he had deprived them of the hegemony over the Peloponnesus which they had formerly held; and the Eleians did help them to destroy the power of Pheidon, and the Lacedaemonians helped the Eleians to bring both Pisatis and Triphylia under their sway. The length of the voyage along the coast of the Eleia of today, not counting the sinuosities of the gulfs, is, all told, twelve hundred stadia.193 So much for Eleia. 4. Messenia borders on Eleia; and for the most part it inclines round towards the south and the Libyan Sea. Now in the time of the Trojan War this country was classed as subject to Menelaüs, since it was a part of Laconia, and it was called Messene, but the city now named Messene whose acropolis was Ithome, had not yet been founded;194 but after the death of Menelaüs, when those who succeeded to the government of Laconia had become enfeebled, the Neleidae began to rule over Messenia. And indeed at the time of the return of the Heracleidae and of the division of the country which then took place, Melanthus was king of the Messenians, who were an autonomous people, although formerly they had been subject to Menelaüs. An indication of this is as follows: The seven cities which Agamemnon promised to give to Achilles were on the Messenian Gulf and the adjacent Asinaean Gulf, so called after the Messenian Asine;195 these cities were “"Cardamyle and Enope and grassy Hire and sacred Pherae and deep-meadowed Antheia and beautiful Aepeia and vine-clad Pedasus;"
”196and surely Agamemnon would not have promised cities that belonged neither to himself nor to his brother. And the poet makes it clear that men from Pherae197 did accompany Menelaüs on the expedition; and in the Laconian Catalogue he includes Oetylus,198 which is situated on the Messenian Gulf. Messene199 comes after Triphylia; and there is a cape which is common to both;200 and after this cape come Cyparissia and Coryphasium. Above Coryphasium and the sea, at a distance of seven stadia, lies a mountain, Aegaleum. [2] Now the ancient Messenian Pylus was a city at the foot of Aegaleum; but after this city was torn down some of its inhabitants took up their abode on Cape Coryphasium; and when the Athenians under the leadership of Eurymedon and Stratocles201 were sailing on the second expedition to Sicily, they reconstructed the city as a fortress against the Lacedaemonians. Here, too, is the Messenian Cyparissia, and the island called Prote, and the island called Sphagia that lies off the coast near Pylus (the same is also called Sphacteria), on which the Lacedaemonians lost by capture three hundred of their own men, who were besieged and forced to surrender by the Athenians.202 Opposite this seacoast of the Cyparissians, out in the high sea, lie two islands called Strophades; and they are distant, I should say, about four hundred stadia from the mainland, in the Libyan and Southern Sea. Thucydides203 says that this Pylus was the naval station of the Messenians. It is four hundred204 stadia distant from Sparta. [3] Next comes Methone. This, they say, is what the poet calls Pedasus,205 one of the seven cities which Agamemnon promised to Achilles. It was here that Agrippa, during the war of Actium,206 after he had taken the place by an attack from the sea, put to death Bogus, the king of the Maurusians, who belonged to the faction of Antony. [4] Adjacent to Methone207 is Acritas,208 which is the beginning of the Messenian Gulf. But this is also called the Asinaean Gulf, from Asine, which is the first town on the gulf and bears the same name as the Hermionic town.209 Asine, then, is the beginning of the gulf on the west, while the beginning on the east is formed by a place called Thyrides,210 which borders on that part of the Laconia of today which is near Cynaethius and Taenarum.211 Between Asine and Thyrides, beginning at Thyrides, one comes to Oetylus (by some called Baetylus 212); then to Leuctrum, a colony of the Leuctri in Boeotia; then to Cardamyle, which is situated on a rock fortified by nature; then to Pherae,213 which borders on Thuria and Gerena, the place from which Nestor got his epithet "Gerenian," it is said, because his life was saved there, as I have said before.214 In Gerenia is to be seen a temple of Triccaean Asclepius, a reproduction of the one in the Thessalian Tricca. It is said that Pelops, after he had given his sister Niobe in marriage to Amphion, founded Leuctrum, Charadra, and Thalami (now called Boeoti), bringing with him certain colonists from Boeotia. Near Pherae is the mouth of the Nedon River; it flows through Laconia and is a different river from the Neda. It215 has a notable temple of Athena Nedusia. In Poeäessa,216 also, there is a temple of Athena Nedusia, named after some place called Nedon, from which Teleclus is said to have colonized Poeäessa and Echeiae217 and Tragium. [5] Of the seven cities218 which Agamemnon tendered to Achilles, I have already spoken about Cardamyle and Pherae and Pedasus. As for Enope,219 some say that it is Pellana,220 others that it is some place near Cardamyle, and others that it is Gerenia. As for Hire, it is pointed out near the mountain that is near Megalopolis in Arcadia, on the road that leads to Andania, the city which, as I have said,221 the poet called Oechalia; but others say that what is now Mesola,222 which extends to the gulf between Taÿgetus and Messenia, is called Hire. And Aepeia is now called Thuria, which, as I have said,223 borders on Pharae; it is situated on a lofty hill, and hence the name.224 From Thuria is derived the name of the Thuriates Gulf, on which there was but one city, Rhium225 by name, opposite Taenarum. And as for Antheia, some say that it is Thuria itself, and that Aepeia is Methone; but others say that of all the Messenian cities the epithet "deep-meadowed"226 was most appropriately applied to the intervening Asine, in whose territory on the sea is a city called Corone;227 moreover, according to some writers, it was Corone that the poet called Pedasus. “"And all are close to the salt sea,"
”228Cardamyle on it, Pharae only five stadia distant (with an anchoring place in summer), while the others are at varying distances from the sea. [6] It is near Corone, at about the center of the gulf, that the river Pamisus empties. The river has on its right Corone and the cities that come in order after it (of these latter the farthermost towards the west are Pylus and Cyparissia, and between these is Erana, which some have wrongly thought to be the Arene of earlier time),229 and it has Thuria and Pharae on its left. It is the largest of the rivers inside the Isthmus, although it is no more than a hundred stadia in length from its sources, from which it flows with an abundance of water through the Messenian plain, that is, through Macaria, as it is called. The river stands at a distance of fifty230 stadia from the present city of the Messenians. There is also another Pamisus, a small torrential stream, which flows near the Laconian Leuctrum; and it was over Leuctrum that the Messenians got into a dispute with the Lacedaemonians in the time of Philip. Of the Pamisus which some called the Amathus I have already spoken.231 [7] According to Ephorus: When Cresphontes took Messenia, he divided it into five cities; and so, since Stenyclarus was situated in the center of this country, he designated it as a royal residence for himself, while as for the others—Pylus, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyameitis—he sent kings to them, after conferring on all the Messenians equal rights with the Dorians; but since this irritated the Dorians, he changed his mind, gave sanction to Stenyclarus alone as a city, and also gathered into it all the Dorians. [8] The city of the Messenians is similar to Corinth; for above either city lies a high and precipitous mountain that is enclosed by a common232 wall, so that it is used as an acropolis, the one mountain being called Ithome and the other Acrocorinthus. And so Demetrius of Pharos seems to have spoken aptly to Philip233 the son of Demetrius when he advised him to lay hold of both these cities if he coveted the Peloponnesus,234 "for if you hold both horns," he said, "you will hold down the cow," meaning by "horns" Ithome and Acrocorinthus, and by "cow" the Peloponnesus. And indeed it is because of their advantageous position that these cities have been objects of contention. Corinth was destroyed and rebuilt again by the Romans;235 and Messene was destroyed by the Lacedaemonians but restored by the Thebans and afterward by Philip the son of Amyntas. The citadels, however, remained uninhabited. [9] The temple of Artemis at Limnae, at which the Messenians are reputed to have outraged the maidens who had come to the sacrifice,236 is on the boundaries between Laconia and Messenia, where both peoples held assemblies and offered sacrifice in common; and they say that it was after the outraging of the maidens, when the Messenians refused to give satisfaction for the act, that the war took place. And it is after this Limnae, also, that the Limnaeum, the temple of Artemis in Sparta, has been named. [10] Often, however, they went to war on account of the revolts of the Messenians. Tyrtaeus says in his poems that the first conquest of Messenia took place in the time of his fathers' fathers; the second, at the time when the Messenians chose the Argives, Eleians, Pisatans, and Arcadians as allies and revolted—the Arcadians furnishing Aristocrates237 the king of Orchomenus as general and the Pisatae furnishing Pantaleon the son of Omphalion; at this time, he says, he himself was the Lacedaemonian general in the war,238 for in his elegy entitled Eunomia he says that he came from there: “"For the son of Cronus, spouse of Hera of the beautiful crown, Zeus himself, hath given this city to the Heracleidae, in company with whom I left windy Erineus, and came to the broad island of Pelops."
”239240 Therefore either these verses of the elegy must be denied authority or we must discredit Philochorus,241 who says that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian from the deme of Aphidnae, and also Callisthenes and several other writers, who say that he came from Athens when the Lacedaemonians asked for him in accordance with an oracle which bade them to get a commander from the Athenians. So the second war was in the time of Tyrtaeus; but also a third and fourth war took place, they say, in which the Messenians were defeated.242 The voyage round the coast of Messenia, following the sinuosities of the gulfs, is, all told, about eight hundred stadia in length. [11] However, I am overstepping the bounds of moderation in recounting the numerous stories told about a country the most of which is now deserted; in fact, Laconia too is now short of population as compared with its large population in olden times, for outside of Sparta the remaining towns are only about thirty in number, whereas in olden times it was called, they say, "country of the hundred cities"; and it was on this account, they say, that they held annual festivals in which one hundred cattle were sacrificed. 5. Be this as it may, after the Messenian Gulf comes the Laconian Gulf, lying between Taenarum243 and Maleae,244 which bends slightly from the south towards the east; and Thyrides,245 a precipitous rock exposed to the currents of the sea, is in the Messenian Gulf at a distance of one hundred and thirty stadia from Taenarum. Above Thyrides lies Taÿgetus; it is a lofty and steep mountain, only a short distance from the sea, and it connects in its northerly parts with the foothills of the Arcadian mountains in such a way that a glen is left in between, where Messenia borders on Laconia. Below Taÿgetus, in the interior, lies Sparta, and also Amyclae, where is the temple of Apollo,246 and Pharis. Now the site of Sparta is in a rather hollow district,247 although it includes mountains within its limits; yet no part of it is marshy, though in olden times the suburban part was marshy, and this part they called Limnae;248 and the temple of Dionysus in Limnae249 stood on wet ground, though now its foundations rest on dry ground. In the bend of the seaboard one comes, first, to a headland that projects into the sea, Taenarum, with its temple of Poseidon situated in a grove; and secondly, near by, to the cavern250 through which, according to the myth writers, Cerberus was brought up from Hades by Heracles. From here the passage towards the south across the sea to Phycus,251 a cape in Cyrenaea, is three thousand stadia; and the passage towards the west to Pachynus,252 the promontory of Sicily, is four thousand six hundred, though some say four thousand; and towards the east to Maleae, following the sinuosities of the gulfs, six hundred and seventy; and to Onugnathus,253 a low-lying peninsula somewhat this side of Maleae, five hundred and twenty; off Onugnathus and opposite it, at a distance of forty stadia, lies Cythera, an island with a good harbor, containing a city of the same name, which Eurycles, the ruler of the Lacedaemonians in our times, seized as his private property; and round it lie several small islands, some near it and others slightly farther away; and to Corycus,254 a cape in Crete, the shortest voyage is seven hundred stadia.255 [2] After Taenarum, on the voyage to Onugnathus and Maleae, one comes to the city Psamathus; then to Asine, and to Gythium, the seaport of Sparta, situated at a distance of two hundred and forty stadia from Sparta. The roadstead of the seaport was dug by the hand of man, so it is said. Then one comes to the Eurotas, which empties between Gythium and Acraea. Now for a time the voyage is along the shore, for about two hundred and forty stadia; then comes a marshy district situated above the gulf, and also a village called Helus.256 In earlier times Helus was a city, just as Homer says: “"And they that held Amyclae, and Helus, a city by the sea."
”257It is said to have been founded by Helius, a son of Perseus. And one comes also to a plain called Leuce;258 then to a city Cyparissia, which is situated on a peninsula and has a harbor; then to Onugnathus, which has a harbor; then to the city Boea; and then to Maleae. And the distance from Onugnathus to Maleae is one hundred and fifty stadia; and there is also a city Asopus259 in Laconia. [3] They say that one of the places mentioned in Homer's Catalogue,260 Messe, is nowhere to be seen; and that Messoa was not a part of the country but of Sparta, as was the case with Limnaeum,261 . . . 262 But some take "Messe" as an apocopated form of "Messene," for, as I have said,263 Messene too was a part of Laconia. As examples of apocope from the poet himself, writers cite "kri," "do," and "maps,"264 and also the passage “"the heroes Automedon and Alcimus,"
”265for "Alcimedon"; then from Hesiod, who uses "bri" for "brithu" or "briaron"; and Sophocles and Ion, "rha" for "rhadion"; and Epicharmus, "li" for "lian," and "Syraco" for "Syracuse"; and in Empedocles,266 "ops" for "opsis": “"the 'ops'267 of both becomes one;"
”268 and in Antimachus, “"the sacred 'ops' of the Eleusinian Demeter,"
”269 and "alphi" for "alphiton"; and Euphorion even uses "hel" for "helos"; and in Philetas, "eri" for "erion": “"maidservants bring white 'eri'270 and put it in baskets;"
”271 and Aratus says "peda" for "pedalia": "the 'peda'272 towards the wind"; and Simmias, "Dodo" for "Dodona." As for the rest of the places listed by the poet, some have been destroyed; of others traces are still left; and of others the names have been changed, for example, Augeiae273 to Aegaeae;274 for the Augeiae in Locris275 no longer exists at all. As for Las, the story goes, the Dioscuri276 once captured it by siege, and it was from this fact that they got the appellation "Lapersae."277 And Sophocles says, “"by the two Lapersae, I swear, by Eurotas third, by the gods in Argos and about Sparta."
”278 [4] According to Ephorus: Eurysthenes and Procles, the Heracleidae, took possession of Laconia,279 divided the country into six parts, and founded cities;280 now one of the divisions, Amyclae, they selected and gave to the man281 who had betrayed Laconia to them and who had persuaded the ruler who was in possession of it to accept their terms and emigrate with the Achaeans to Ionia; Sparta they designated as a royal residence for themselves; to the other divisions they sent kings, and because of the sparsity of the population gave them permission to receive as fellow inhabitants any strangers who wished the privilege; and they used Las as a naval station because of its good harbor, and Aegys282 as a base of operations against their enemies (for its territory283 bordered on those of the surrounding peoples) and Pharis as a treasury, because it afforded security against outsiders; . . . but though the neighboring peoples, one and all, were subject to the Spartiatae, still they had equal rights, sharing both in the rights of citizenship and in the offices of state, and they were called Helots;284 but Agis, the son of Eurysthenes, deprived them of the equality of rights and ordered them to pay tribute to Sparta; now all obeyed except the Heleians, the occupants of Helus, who, because they revolted, were forcibly reduced in a war, and were condemned to slavery, with the express reservation that no slaveholder should be permitted either to set them free or to sell them outside the borders of the country; and this war was called the War against the Helots. One may almost say that it was Agis and his associates who introduced the whole system of Helot-slavery that persisted until the supremacy of the Romans; for the Lacedaemonians held the Helots as state slaves in a way, having assigned to them certain settlements to live in and special services to perform. [5] Concerning the government of the Laconians and the changes that took place among them, one might omit most things as well known, but there are certain things which it is perhaps worthwhile to mention. For instance, they say that the Achaeans of Phthiotis came down with Pelops into the Peloponnesus, took up their abode in Laconia, and so far excelled in bravery that the Peloponnesus, which now for many ages had been called Argos, came to be called Achaean Argos, and the name was applied not only in a general way to the Peloponnesus, but also in a specific way to Laconia; at any rate, the words of the poet, “"Where was Menelaüs?"
”285“or was he not in Achaean Argos?"
”286are interpreted by some thus: "or was he not in Laconia?" And at the time of the return of the Heracleidae, when Philonomus betrayed the country to the Dorians, the Achaeans emigrated from Laconia to the country of the Ionians, the country that still today is called Achaea. But I shall speak of them in my description of Achaea.287 Now the new possessors of Laconia restrained themselves at first, but after they turned over the government to Lycurgus they so far surpassed the rest that they alone of the Greeks ruled over both land and sea, and they continued ruling the Greeks until they were deprived of their hegemony, first by the Thebans, and immediately after them by the Macedonians. However, they did not wholly yield even to the Macedonians, but, preserving their autonomy, always kept up a struggle for the primacy both with the rest of the Greeks and with the kings of the Macedonians. And when the Macedonians had been overthrown by the Romans, the Lacedaemonians committed some slight offences against the praetors who were sent by the Romans, because at that time they were under the rule of tyrants and had a wretched government; but when they had recovered themselves, they were held in particular honor, and remained free, contributing to Rome nothing else but friendly services. But recently Eurycles has stirred up trouble among them, having apparently abused the friendship of Caesar unduly in order to maintain his authority over his subjects; but the trouble288 quickly came to an end, Eurycles retiring to his fate,289 and his son290 being averse to any friendship of this kind.291 And it also came to pass that the Eleuthero-Lacones292 got a kind of republican constitution, since the Perioeci293 and also the Helots, at the time when Sparta was under the rule of tyrants, were the first to attach themselves to the Romans. Now Hellanicus says that Eurysthenes and Procles drew up the constitution;294 but Ephorus censures Hellanicus, saying that he has nowhere mentioned Lycurgus and that he ascribes the work of Lycurgus to persons who had nothing to do with it. At any rate, Ephorus continues, it is to Lycurgus alone that a temple has been erected and that annual sacrifices are offered, whereas Eurysthenes and Procles, although they were the founders, have not even been accorded the honor of having their respective descendants called Eurysthenidae and Procleidae; instead, the respective descendants are called Agidae, after Agis the son of Eurysthenes, and Eurypontidae, after Eurypon the son of Procles; for Agis and Eurypon reigned in an honorable way, whereas Eurysthenes and Procles welcomed foreigners and through these maintained their overlordship; and hence they were not even honored with the title of "archegetae,"295 an honor which is always paid to founders; and further, Pausanias,296 after he was banished because of the hatred of the Eurypontidae, the other royal house, and when he was in exile, prepared a discourse on the laws of Lycurgus, who belonged to the house that banished him,297 in which he also tells the oracles that were given out to Lycurgus concerning most of the laws. [6] Concerning the nature of the regions, both Laconia and Messenia, one should accept what Euripides says in the following passages: He says that Laconia has “"much arable land but is not easy to cultivate, for it is hollow,298 surrounded by mountains, rugged, and difficult for enemies to invade;" and that Messenia is "a land of fair fruitage and watered by innumerable streams, abounding in pasturage for cattle and sheep, being neither very wintry in the blasts of winter nor yet made too hot by the chariot of Helios;"
”299and a little below, in speaking of the lots which the Heracleidae cast for the country, he says that the first lot conferred “"lordships over the land of Laconia, a poor country,"
”300 and the second over Messenia, “"whose fertility is greater than words can express;"
”301 and Tyrtaeus speaks of it in the same manner. But one should not admit that the boundary between Laconia and Messenia is formed, as Euripides says, “"by the Pamisus, which rushes into the sea,"
”302 for it flows through the middle of Messenia, nowhere touching the present Laconia. Neither is he right when he says that to mariners Messenia is far away, for Messenia like Laconia lies on the sea; and he does not give the right boundary of Elis either, “"and far away, after one crosses the river, lies Elis, the neighbor of Zeus;"
”303for if, on the one hand, he means the present Eleian country, which borders on Messenia, the Pamisus does not touch this country, any more than it does Laconia, for, as I have said, it flows through the middle of Messenia; or if, on the other hand, he means the old Coele Elis,304 he deviates much further from the truth; for after one crosses the Pamisus there is still a large part of Messenia to traverse, and then the whole of the territories of the Lepreatae and the Macistii, which they used to call Triphylia; and then come Pisatis and Olympia, and then, three hundred stadia farther on, Elis. [7] Since some critics write305 Lacedaemon "Ketoessan" and others "Kaietaessan," the question is asked, how should we interpret "Ketoessa," whether as derived from "Kete,"306 or as meaning "large,"307 which seems to be more plausible. And as for "Kaietaessan," some interpret it as meaning "Kalaminthode,"308 whereas others say that the clefts caused by earthquakes are called "Kaietoi," and that from "Kaietoi" is derived "Kaietas," the word among the Lacedaemonians for their "prison," which is a sort of cavern. But some prefer to call such cavernous places "Kooi," and whence, they add, comes the expression “"'oreskoioi' monsters."
”309310 Laconia is subject to earthquakes, and in fact some writers record that certain peaks of Taÿgetus have been broken away. And there are quarries of very costly marble—the old quarries of Taenarian marble on Taenarum; and recently some men have opened a large quarry in Taÿgetus, being supported in their undertaking by the extravagance of the Romans. [8] Homer makes it clear that both the country and the city are called by the same name, Lacedaemon (and when I say "country" I include Messenia with Laconia). For in speaking of the bows, when he says, “"beautiful gifts which a friend had given him when he met him in Lacedaemon, even Iphitus the son of Eurytus,"
”311and then adds, “"these twain met one another in Messene in the home of Ortilochus,"
”312Homer means the country of which Messenia was a part. Accordingly it made no difference to him whether he said "a friend had given him when he met him in Lacedaemon" or "these twain met in Messene." For, that Pherae is the home of Ortilochus, is clear from this passage:
and Pherae is in Messenia. But when Homer says that, after Telemachus and his companions set out from Pherae, they shook the yoke all day long,313 and then adds, “"and the sun set, and they came to Hollow Lacedaemon 'Ketoessan,' and then drove to the palace of Menelaüs,"“"and they" (Telemachus and Peisistratus) "went to Pherae, the home of Diocles, son of Ortilochus;"
”
”314we must interpret him as meaning the city; otherwise it will be obvious that the poet speaks of their arrival at Lacedaemon from Lacedaemon! And, besides, it is not probable that the residence of Menelaüs was not at Sparta, nor yet, if it were not there, that Telemachus would say, “"for I would go both to Sparta and to Pylus."
”315But the fact that Homer uses the epithets of the country316 is in disagreement with this view317 unless, indeed, one is willing to attribute this to poetic license—as one should do, for it were better for Messene to be included with Laconia or with the Pylus that was subject to Nestor, and not to be set off by itself in the Calalogue as not even having a part in the expedition. 6. After Maleae follows the Argolic Gulf, and then the Hermionic Gulf; the former stretches as far as Scyllaeum, facing approximately eastward and towards the Cyclades, while the latter is more to the east than the former and extends as far as Aegina and Epidauria. Now the first places on the Argolic Gulf are occupied by Laconians, and the rest by the Argives. Among the places belonging to the Laconians is Delium, which is sacred to Apollo and bears the same name as the place in Boeotia;318 and also Minoa, a stronghold, which has the same name as the place in Megaris; and Epidaurus Limera,319 as Artemidorus says. But Apollodorus observes that this Epidaurus Limera is near Cythera, and that, because it has a good harbor, it was called "Limenera," which was abbreviated and contracted to "Limera," so that its name has been changed. Immediately after sailing from Maleae the Laconian coast is rugged for a considerable distance, but still it affords anchoring places and harbors. The rest of the coast is well provided with harbors; and off the coast lie many small islands, but they are not worth mentioning. [2] But to the Argives belongs Prasiae, and also Temenium, where Temenus was buried, and, still before Temenium, the district through which flows the river Lerne, as it is called, bearing the same name as the marsh in which is laid the scene of the myth of the Hydra. Temenium lies above the sea at a distance of twenty-six stadia from Argos; and from Argos to Heraeum the distance is forty stadia, and thence to Mycenae ten. After Temenium comes Nauplia, the naval station of the Argives: and the name is derived from the fact that the place is accessible to ships.320 And it is on the basis of this name, it is said, that the myth of Nauplius and his sons has been fabricated by the more recent writers of myth, for Homer would not have failed to mention these, if Palamedes had displayed such wisdom and sagacity, and if he was unjustly and treacherously murdered, and if Nauplius wrought destruction to so many men at Cape Caphereus. But in addition to its fabulous character the genealogy of Nauplius is also wholly incorrect in respect to the times involved; for, granting that he was the son of Poseidon, how could a man who was still alive at the time of the Trojan war have been the son of Amymone?321 Next after Nauplia one comes to the caverns and the labyrinths built in them, which are called Cyclopeian.322 [3] Then come other places, and next after them the Hermionic Gulf; for, since Homer assigns this gulf also to Argeia, it is clear that I too should not overlook this section of the circuit. The gulf begins at the town of Asine.323 Then come Hermione and Troezen; and, as one sails along the coast, one comes also to the island of Calauria, which has a circuit of one hundred and thirty stadia and is separated from the mainland by a strait four stadia wide. [4] Then comes the Saronic Gulf; but some call it a sea and others a strait; and because of this it is also called the Saronic Sea. Saronic Gulf is the name given to the whole of the strait, stretching from the Hermionic Sea and from the sea that is at the Isthmus, that connects with both the Myrtoan and Cretan Seas. To the Saronic Gulf belong both Epidaurus and the island of Aegina that lies off Epidaurus; then Cenchreae, the easterly naval station of the Corinthians; then, after sailing forty-five stadia, one comes to Schoenus,324 a harbor. From Maleae thither the total distance is about eighteen hundred stadia. Near Schoenus is the "Diolcus,"325 the narrowest part of the Isthmus, where is the temple of the Isthmian Poseidon. However, let us for the present postpone the discussion of these places, for they lie outside of Argeia, and let us resume again our description of those in Argeia. [5] And in the first place let me mention in how many ways the term "Argos" is used by the poet, not only by itself but also with epithets, when he calls Argos "Achaean," or "Iasian," or "hippian,"326 or "Pelasgian," or "horse-pasturing."327 For, in the first place, the city is called Argos: “"Argos and Sparta,"
”328“"and those who held Argos and Tiryns."
”329And, secondly, the Peloponnesus: “"in our home in Argos,"
”330for the city of Argos was not his331 home. And, thirdly, Greece as a whole; at any rate, he calls all Greeks Argives, just as he calls them Danaans and Achaeans. However, he differentiates identical names by epithets, calling Thessaly "Pelasgian Argos": “"Now all, moreover, who dwelt in Pelasgian Argos;"
”332333 and calling the Peloponnesus "Achaean Argos." “"And if we should come to Achaean Argos,"
”334“"Or was he not in Achaean Argos?"
”335And here he signifies that under a different designation the Peloponnesians were also called Achaeans in a special sense. And he calls the Peloponnesus "Iasian Argos": “"If all the Achaeans throughout Iasian Argos could see"
”336 Penelope, she would have still more wooers; for it is not probable that he meant the Greeks from all Greece, but only those that were near. But the epithets "horse-pasturing" and "hippian" he uses in a general sense. [6] But critics are in dispute in regard to the terms "Hellas," "Hellenes," and "Panhellenes." For Thucydides337 says that the poet nowhere speaks of barbarians, "because the Hellenes had not as yet been designated by a common distinctive name opposed to that of the barbarians." And Apollodorus says that only the Greeks in Thessaly were called Hellenes: "and were called Myrmidons and Hellenes." He says, however, that Hesiod and Archilochus already knew that all the Greeks were called, not only Hellenes, but also Panhellenes, for Hesiod, in speaking of the daughters of Proteus, says that the Panhellenes wooed them, and Archilochus says that “"the woes of the Panhellenes centered upon Thasos."
”338 But others oppose this view, saying that the poet also speaks of barbarians, since he speaks of the Carians as men of barbarous speech,339 and of all the Greeks as Hellenes, “"the man whose fame is wide throughout Hellas and mid-Agros,"
”340and again, “"If thou wishest to journey throughout Hellas and mid-Agros."
”341 [7] Now the city of the Argives342 is for the most part situated in a plain, but it has for a citadel the place called Larisa, a hill that is fairly well fortified and contains a temple of Zeus. And near the city flows the Inachus, a torrential river that has its sources in Lyrceius, the mountain that is near Cynuria in Arcadia.343 But concerning the sources of which mythology tells us, they are fabrications of poets, as I have already said.344 And "waterless Argos" is also a fabrication, ("but the gods made Argos well watered "),345 since the country lies in a hollow, and is traversed by rivers, and contains marshes and lakes, and since the city is well supplied with waters of many wells whose water level reaches the surface. So critics find the cause of the mistake in this verse: “"And in utter shame would I return to πολυδίψιον346 Argos."
”347πολυδίψιον either is used for πολυπόθητον, i.e., "much longed for." or, omitting the δ, for πολυΐψιον, i.e., "very destructive." in the sense of πολύφθορον,348 as in the phrase of Sophocles, “"and the πολύφθορον home of the Pelopidae there;"
”349 for the words προϊάψαι and ἰάψαι , and ἴψασθαι signify a kind of destruction or affliction: “"Now he is merely making trial, but soon he will afflict350 the sons of the Achaeans;"
”351“"mar352 her fair flesh; "
”353“"untimely sent354 to Hades."
”355And besides, Homer does not mean the city of Argos (for it was not thither that Agamemnon was about to return), but the Peloponnesus, which certainly is not a "thirsty" land either. Moreover some critics, retaining the δ, interpret the word by the figure hyperbaton and as a case of synaloepha with the connective δέ,356 so that the verse would read thus: "And in utter shame would I return πολὺ δ᾽ ἴψιον Ἄργος," that is to say, "would I return πολυίψιον Ἄργοσδε," where Ἄργοσδε stands for εἰς Ἄργος. [8] Now one of the rivers that flows through Argeia is the Inachus, but there is another river in Argeia, the Erasinus. The latter has its source in Stymphalus in Arcadia, that is, in the lake there which is called the Stymphalian Lake, which mythology makes the home of the birds that were driven out by the arrows and drums of Heracles; and the birds themselves are called Stymphalides. And they say that the Erasinus sinks beneath the ground and then issues forth in Argeia and waters the plain. The Erasinus is also called the Arsinus. And another river of the same name flows from Arcadia to the coast near Bura; and there is another Erasinus in the territory of Eretria, and still another in Attica near Brauron. And a spring Amymone is also pointed out near Lerne. And Lake Lerne, the scene of the story of the Hydra, lies in Argeia and the Mycenaean territory; and on account of the cleansings that take place in it there arose a proverb, "A Lerne of ills." Now writers agree that the county has plenty of water, and that, although the city itself lies in a waterless district, it has an abundance of wells. These wells they ascribe to the daughters of Danaüs, believing that they discovered them; and hence the utterance of this verse, “"The daughters of Danaüs rendered Argos, which was waterless, Argos the well watered;"
”357but they add that four of the wells not only were designated as sacred but are especially revered, thus introducing the false notion that there is a lack of water where there is an abundance of it. [9] The acropolis of the Argives is said to have been founded by Danaüs, who is reputed to have surpassed so much those who reigned in this region before him that, according to Euripides,“"throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians should be called Danaans."
”358359 Moreover, his tomb is in the center of the marketplace of the Argives; and it is called Palinthus. And I think that it was the fame of this city that prepared the way, not only for the Pelasgians and the Danaans, as well as the Argives, to be named after it, but also for the rest of the Greeks; and so, too, the more recent writers speak of "Iasidae," "Iasian Argos," "Apia," and "Apidones"; but Homer does not mention the "Apidones," though he uses the word "apia,"360 rather of a "distant" land. To prove that by Argos the poet means the Peloponnesus, we can add the following examples: “"Argive Helen,"
”361and “"There is a city Ephyra in the inmost part of Argos,"
”362and “"mid Argos,"
”363and “"and that over many islands and all Argos he should be lord."
”364And in the more recent writers the plain, too, is called Argos, but not once in Homer. Yet they think that this is more especially a Macedonian or Thessalian usage. [10] After the descendants of Danaüs succeeded to the reign in Argos, and the Amythaonides, who were emigrants from Pisatis and Triphylia, became associated with these, one should not be surprised if, being kindred, they at first so divided the country into two kingdoms that the two cities in them which held the hegemony were designated as the capitals, though situated near one another, at a distance of less than fifty stadia, I mean Argos and Mycenae, and that the Heraeum365 near Mycenae was a temple common to both. In this temple366 are the images made by Polycleitus,367 in execution the most beautiful in the world, but in costliness and size inferior to those by Pheidias. Now at the outset Argos was the more powerful, but later Mycenae waxed more powerful on account of the removal thereto of the Pelopidae; for, when everything fell to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, being the elder, assumed the supreme power, and by a combination of good fortune and valor acquired much of the country in addition to the possessions he already had; and indeed he also added Laconia to the territory of Mycenae. Now Menelaüs came into possession of Laconia, but Agamemnon received Mycenae and the regions as far as Corinth and Sicyon and the country which at that time was called the country of the Ionians and Aegialians but later the country of the Achaeans. But after the Trojan times, when the empire of Agememnon had been broken up, it came to pass that Mycenae was reduced, and particularly after the return of the Heracleidae; for when these had taken possession of the Peloponnesus they expelled its former masters, so that those who held Argos also held Mycenae as a component part of one whole. But in later times Mycenae was razed to the ground by the Argives, so that today not even a trace of the city of the Mycenaeans is to be found. And since Mycenae has suffered such a fate, one should not be surprised if also some of the cities which are catalogued as subject to Argos have now disappeared. Now the Catalogue contains the following: “"And those who held Argos, and Tiryns of the great walls, and Hermione and Asine that occupy a deep gulf, and Troezen and Eiones and vine-clad Epidaurus, and the youths of the Achaeans who held Aegina and Mases."
”368But of the cities just named I have already discussed Argos, and now I must discuss the others. [11] Now it seems that Tiryns was used as a base of operations by Proetus, and was walled by him through the aid of the Cyclopes, who were seven in number, and were called "Bellyhands" because they got their food from their handicraft, and they came by invitation from Lycia. And perhaps the caverns near Nauplia and the works therein are named after them.369 The acropolis, Licymna, is named after Licymnius, and it is about twelve stadia distant from Nauplia; but it is deserted, and so is the neighboring Midea, which is different from the Boeotian Midea; for the former is Mídea,370 like Prónia,371 while the latter is Midéa, like Tegéa. And bordering on Midea is Prosymna, . . .372 this having a temple of Hera. But the Argives laid waste to most of the cities because of their disobedience; and of the inhabitants those from Tiryns migrated to Epidaurus, and those from . . .373 to Halïeis, as it is called; but those from Asine (this is a village in Argeia near Nauplia) were transferred by the Lacedaemonians to Messenia, where is a town that bears the same name as the Argolic Asine; for the Lacedaemonians, says Theopompos, took possession of much territory that belonged to other peoples and settled there all who fled to them and were taken in. And the inhabitants of Nauplia also withdrew to Messenia. [12] Hermione is one of the important cities; and its seaboard is held by the Halïeis,374 as they are called, men who busy themselves on the sea. And it is commonly reported that the descent to Hades in the country of the Hermionians is a short cut; and this is why they do not put passage money in the mouths of their dead. [13] It is said that Asine too375 was a habitation of the Dryopians—whether, being inhabitants of the regions of the Spercheius, they were settled here by the Arcadian Dryops,376 as Aristotle has said, or whether they were driven by Heracles out of the part of Doris that is near Parnassus. As for the Scyllaeum in Hermione, they say that it was named after Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, who, they say, out of love for Minos betrayed Nisaea to him and was drowned in the sea by him, and was here cast ashore by the waves and buried. Eiones was a village, which was depopulated by the Mycenaeans and made into a naval station, but later it disappeared from sight and now is not even a naval station. [14] Troezen is sacred to Poseidon, after whom it was once called Poseidonia. It is situated fifteen stadia above the sea, and it too is an important city. Off its harbor, Pogon by name, lies Calauria, an isle with a circuit of about one hundred and thirty stadia. Here was an asylum sacred to Poseidon; and they say that this god made an exchange with Leto, giving her Delos for Calauria, and also with Apollo, giving him Pytho377 for Taenarum. And Ephorus goes on to tell the oracle: “"For thee it is the same thing to possess Delos or Calauria, most holy Pytho or windy Taenarum."
”And there was also a kind of Amphictyonic League connected with this temple, a league of seven cities which shared in the sacrifice; they were Hermion,378 Epidaurus, Aegina, Athens, Prasïeis, Nauplïeis, and Orchomenus Minyeius; however, the Argives paid dues for the Nauplians, and the Lacedaemonians for the Prasians. The worship of this god was so prevalent among the Greeks that even the Macedonians, whose power already extended as far as the temple, in a way preserved its inviolability, and were afraid to drag away the suppliants who fled for refuge to Calauria; indeed Archias, with soldiers, did not venture to do violence even to Demosthenes, although he had been ordered by Antipater to bring him alive, both him and all the other orators he could find that were under similar charges, but tried to persuade him; he could not persuade him, however, and Demosthenes forestalled him by suiciding with poison. Now Troezen and Pittheus, the sons of Pelops, came originally from Pisatis; and the former left behind him the city which was named after him, and the latter succeeded him and reigned as king. But Anthes, who previously had possession of the place, set sail and founded Halicarnassus; but concerning this I shall speak in my description of Caria and Troy.379 [15] Epidaurus used to be called Epicarus, for Aristotle says that Carians took possession of it, as also of Hermione, but that after the return of the Heracleidae the Ionians who had accompanied the Heracleidae from the Attic Tetrapolis380 to Argos took up their abode with these Carians.381 Epidaurus, too, is an important city, and particularly because of the fame of Asclepius, who is believed to cure diseases of every kind and always has his temple full of the sick, and also of the votive tablets on which the treatments are recorded, just as at Cos and Tricce. The city lies in the recess of the Saronic Gulf, has a circular coast of fifteen stadia, and faces the summer risings of the sun.382 It is enclosed by high mountains which reach as far as the sea, so that on all sides it is naturally fitted for a stronghold. Between Troezen and Epidaurus there was a strong hold called Methana, and also a peninsula of the same name. In some copies of Thucydides the name is spelled "Methone," the same as the Macedonian city in which Philip, in the siege, had his eye knocked out. And it is on this account, in the opinion of Demetrius of Scepsis, that some writers, being deceived, suppose that it was the Methone in the territory of Troezen against which the men sent by Agamemnon to collect sailors are said to have uttered the imprecation that its citizens might never cease from their wall-building, since, in his opinion, it was not these citizens that refused, but those of the Macedonian city, as Theopompus says; and it is not likely, he adds, that these citizens who were near to Agamemnon disobeyed him. [16] Aegina is the name of a place in Epidauria; and it is also the name of an island lying off this part of the mainland—the Aegina of which the poet means to speak in the verses just cited;383 and it is on this account that some write "the island Aegina" instead of "who held Aegina,"384 thus distinguishing between places of the same name. Now what need have I to say that the island is one of the most famous? for it is said that both Aeacus and his subjects were from there. And this is the island that was once actually mistress of the sea and disputed with the Athenians for the prize of valor in the sea fight at Salamis at the time of the Persian War. The island is said to be one hundred and eighty stadia in circuit; and it has a city of the same name that faces southwest; and it is surrounded by Attica, Megaris, and the Peloponnesus as far is Epidaurus, being distant about one hundred stadia from each; and its eastern and southern sides are washed by the Myrtoan and Cretan Seas; and around it lie small islands, many of them near the mainland, though Belbina extends to the high sea. The country of Aegina is fertile at a depth below the surface, but rocky on the surface, and particularly the level part; and therefore the whole country is bare, although it is fairly productive of barley. It is said that the Aeginetans were called Myrmidons,—not as the myth has it, because, when a great famine occurred, the ants385 became human beings in answer to a prayer of Aeacus, but because they excavated the earth after the manner of ants and spread the soil over the rocks, so as to have ground to till, and because they lived in the dugouts, refraining from the use of soil for bricks. Long ago Aegina was called Oenone, the same name as that of two demes386 in Attica, one near Eleutherae, “"to inhabit the plains that border on Oenone and Eleutherae;"”387 and another, one of the demes of the Marathonian Tetrapolis,388 to which is applied the proverb, "To Oenone —the torrent."389 Aegina was colonized successively by the Argives, the Cretans, the Epidaurians, and the Dorians; but later the Athenians divided it by lot among settlers of their own; and then the Lacedaemonians took the island away from the Athenians and gave it back to its ancient settlers. And colonists were sent forth by the Aeginetans both to Cydonia in Crete and to the country of the Ombrici.390 Ephorus says that silver was first coined in Aegina, by Pheidon; for the island, he adds, became a merchant center, since, on account of the poverty of the soil, the people employed themselves at sea as merchants, and hence, he adds, petty wares were called "Aeginetan merchandise." [17] The poet mentions some places in the order in which they are actually situated; “"and these dwelt in Hyria and Aulis,"
”391“"and those who held Argos and Tiryns, Hermione and Asine, Troezen and Eiones;"
”392but at other times not in their actual order: “"Schoenus and Scolus, Thespeia and Graea;"
”393and he mentions the places on the mainland at the same time with the islands: “"those who held Ithaca and dwelt in Crocyleia,"
”394for Crocyleia is in the country of the Acarnanians. And so, also, he here395 connects Mases with Aegina, although it is in Argolis on the mainland. Homer does not name Thyreae, although the others often speak of it; and it was concerning Thyreae that a contest arose between the Argives and the Lacedaemonians, three hundred against three hundred;396 but the Lacedaemonians under the generalship of Othryadas won the victory. Thucydides says that this place is in Cynuria on the common border of Argeia and Laconia. And there are also Hysiae, a well-known place in Argolis, and Cenchreae, which lies on the road that leads from Tegea to Argos through Mt. Parthenius397 and Creopolus,398 but Homer does not know them. Nor yet does he know Lyrceium399 nor Orneae, which are villages in Argeia, the former bearing the same name as the mountain near it and the latter the same as the Orneae which is situated between Corinth and Sicyon. [18] So then, of the cities in the Peloponnesus, Argos and Sparta prove to have been, and still are, the most famous; and, since they are much spoken of, there is all the less need for me to describe them at length, for if I did so I should seem to be repeating what has been said by all writers. Now in early times Argos was the more famous, but later and ever afterwards the Lacedaemonians excelled, and persisted in preserving their autonomy, except perhaps when they chanced to make some slight blunder.400 Now the Argives did not, indeed, admit Pyrrhus into their city (in fact, he fell before the walls, when a certain old woman, as it seems, dropped a tile upon his head), but they became subject to other kings; and after they had joined the Achaean League they came, along with the Achaeans, under the dominion of Rome; and their city persists to this day second in rank after Sparta. [19] But let me speak next of the places which are named in the Catalogue of Ships as subject to Mycenae and Menelaüs. The words of the poet are as follows: “"And those who held Mycenae, well-built fortress, and wealthy Corinth and well-built Cleonae, and dwelt in Orneiae and lovely Araethyree and Sicyon, wherein Adrastus was king at the first; and those who held Hyperesie and steep Gonoessa and Pellene, and dwelt about Aegium and through all the Aegialus401 and about broad Helice."
”402Now Mycenae is no longer in existence, but it was founded by Perseus, and Perseus was succeeded by Sthenelus, and Sthenelus by Eurystheus; and the same men ruled over Argos also. Now Eurystheus made an expedition to Marathon against Iolaüs and the sons of Heracles, with the aid of the Athenians, as the story goes, and fell in the battle, and his body was buried at Gargettus, except his head, which was cut off by Iolaüs, and was buried separately at Tricorynthus near the spring Marcaria below the wagon road. And the place is called "Eurystheus' Head." Then Mycenae fell to the Pelopidae who had set out from Pisatis, and then to the Heracleidae, who also held Argos. But after the naval battle at Salamis the Argives, along with the Cleonaeans and Tegeatans, came over and utterly destroyed Mycenae, and divided the country among themselves. Because of the nearness of the two cities to one another the writers of tragedy speak of them synonymously as though they were one city; and Euripides, even in the same drama, calls the same city, at one time Mycenae, at another Argos, as, for example, in his Iphigeneia403 and his Orestes.404 Cleonae is a town situated by the road that leads from Argos to Corinth, on a hill which is surrounded by dwellings on all sides and is well fortified, so that in my opinion Homer's words, "well-built Cleonae," were appropriate. And here too, between Cleonae and Phlius, are Nemea and the sacred precinct in which the Argives are wont to celebrate the Nemean Games, and the scene of the myth of the Nemean lion, and the village Bembina. Cleonae is one hundred and twenty stadia distant from Argos, and eighty from Corinth. I myself have beheld the settlement from Acrocorinthus. [20] Corinth is called "wealthy" because of its commerce, since it is situated on the Isthmus and is master of two harbors, of which the one leads straight to Asia, and the other to Italy; and it makes easy the exchange of merchandise from both countries that are so far distant from each other. And just as in early times the Strait of Sicily was not easy to navigate, so also the high seas, and particularly the sea beyond Maleae, were not, on account of the contrary winds; and hence the proverb, “"But when you double Maleae, forget your home."”Source unknown At any rate, it was a welcome alternative, for the merchants both from Italy and from Asia, to avoid the voyage to Maleae and to land their cargoes here. And also the duties on what by land was exported from the Peloponnesus and what was imported to it fell to those who held the keys. And to later times this remained ever so. But to the Corinthians of later times still greater advantages were added, for also the Isthmian Games, which were celebrated there, were wont to draw crowds of people. And the Bacchiadae, a rich and numerous and illustrious family, became tyrants of Corinth, and held their empire for nearly two hundred years, and without disturbance reaped the fruits of the commerce; and when Cypselus overthrew these, he himself became tyrant, and his house endured for three generations; and an evidence of the wealth of this house is the offering which Cypselus dedicated at Olympia, a huge statue of beaten gold.405 Again, Demaratus, one of the men who had been in power at Corinth, fleeing from the seditions there, carried with him so much wealth from his home to Tyrrhenia that not only he himself became the ruler of the city406 that admitted him, but his son was made king of the Romans.407 And the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, “"Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth."”Source unknown Moreover, it is recorded that a certain courtesan said to the woman who reproached her with the charge that she did not like to work or touch wool: "Yet, such as I am, in this short time I have taken down three webs."408 [21] The situation of the city, as described by Hieronymus409 and Eudoxus410 and others, and from what I myself saw after the recent restoration of the city by the Romans,411 is about as follows: A lofty mountain with a perpendicular height of three stadia and one half, and an ascent of as much as thirty stadia, ends in a sharp peak; it is called Acrocorinthus, and its northern side is the steepest; and beneath it lies the city in a level, trapezium-shaped place412 close to the very base of the Acrocorinthus. Now the circuit of the city itself used to be as much as forty stadia, and all of it that was unprotected by the mountain was enclosed by a wall; and even the mountain itself, the Acrocorinthus, used to be comprehended within the circuit of this wall wherever wall-building was possible, and when I went up the mountain the ruins of the encircling wall were plainly visible. And so the whole perimeter amounted to about eighty-five stadia. On its other sides the mountain is less steep, though here too it rises to a considerable height and is conspicuous all round. Now the summit has a small temple of Aphrodite; and below the summit is the spring Peirene, which, although it has no overflow, is always full of transparent, potable water. And they say that the spring at the base of the mountain is the joint result of pressure from this and other subterranean veins of water—a spring which flows out into the city in such quantity that it affords a fairly large supply of water. And there is a good supply of wells throughout the city, as also, they say, on the Acrocorinthus; but I myself did not see the latter wells. At any rate, when Euripides says, “"I am come, having left Acrocorinthus that is washed on all sides, the sacred hill-city of Aphrodite,"
”413one should take "washed on all sides" as meaning in the depths of the mountain, since wells and subterranean pools extend through it, or else should assume that in early times Peirene was wont to rise over the surface and flow down the sides of the mountain.414 And here, they say, Pegasus, a winged horse which sprang from the neck of the Gorgon Medusa when her head was cut off, was caught while drinking by Bellerophon. And the same horse, it is said, caused Hippu-crene415 to spring up on Helicon when he struck with his hoof the rock that lay below that mountain. And at the foot of Peirene is the Sisypheium, which preserves no inconsiderable ruins of a certain temple, or royal palace, made of white marble. And from the summit, looking towards the north, one can view Parnassus and Helicon—lofty, snow-clad mountains—and the Crisaean Gulf, which lies at the foot of the two mountains and is surrounded by Phocis, Boeotia, and Megaris, and by the parts of Corinthia and Sicyonia which lie across the gulf opposite to Phocis, that is, towards the west.416 And above all these countries417 lie the Oneian Mountains,418 as they are called, which extend as far as Boeotia and Cithaeron from the Sceironian Rocks,419 that is, from the road that leads along these rocks towards Attica. [22] The beginning of the seaboard on the two sides is, on the one side, Lechaeum, and, on the other, Cenchreae, a village and a harbor distant about seventy stadia from Corinth. Now this latter they use for the trade from Asia, but Lechaeum for that from Italy. Lechaeum lies beneath the city, and does not contain many residences; but long walls about twelve stadia in length have been built on both sides of the road that leads to Lechaeum. The shore that extends from here to Pagae in Megaris is washed by the Corinthian Gulf; it is concave, and with the shore on the other side, at Schoenus, which is near Cenchreae, it forms the "Diolcus."420 In the interval between Lechaeum and Pagae there used to be, in early times, the oracle of the Acraean Hera; and here, too, is Olmiae, the promontory that forms the gulf in which are situated Oenoe and Pagae, the latter a stronghold of the Megarians and Oenoe of the Corinthians. From Cenchreae one comes to Schoenus, where is the narrow part of the isthmus, I mean the "Diolcus"; and then one comes to Crommyonia. Off this shore lie the Saronic and Eleusinian Gulfs, which in a way are the same, and border on the Hermionic Gulf. On the Isthmus is also the temple of the Isthmian Poseidon, in the shade of a grove of pinetrees, where the Corinthians used to celebrate the Isthmian Games. Crommyon is a village in Corinthia, though in earlier times it was in Megaris; and in it is laid the scene of the myth of the Crommyonian sow, which, it is said, was the mother of the Caledonian boar; and, according to tradition, the destruction of this sow was one of the labors of Theseus. Tenea, also, is in Corinthia, and in it is a temple of the Teneatan Apollo; and it is said that most of the colonists who accompanied Archias, the leader of the colonists to Syracuse, set out from there, and that afterwards Tenea prospered more than the other settlements, and finally even had a government of its own, and, revolting from the Corinthians, joined the Romans, and endured after the destruction of Corinth. And mention is also made of an oracle that was given to a certain man from Asia,421 who enquired whether it was better to change his home to Corinth: “"Blest is Corinth, but Tenea for me."
” But in ignorance some pervert this as follows: "but Tegea for me!" And it is said that Polybus reared Oedipus here. And it seems, also, that there is a kinship between the peoples of Tenedos and Tenea, through Tennes422 the son of Cycnus, as Aristotle says;423 and the similarity in the worship of Apollo among the two peoples affords strong indications of such kinship. [23] The Corinthians, when they were subject to Philip, not only sided with him in his quarrel with the Romans, but individually behaved so contemptuously towards the Romans that certain persons ventured to pour down filth upon the Roman ambassadors when passing by their house. For this and other offences, however, they soon paid the penalty, for a considerable army was sent thither, and the city itself was razed to the ground by Leucius Mummius;424 and the other countries as far as Macedonia became subject to the Romans, different commanders being sent into different countries; but the Sicyonians obtained most of the Corinthian country. Polybius, who speaks in a tone of pity of the events connected with the capture of Corinth, goes on to speak of the disregard shown by the army for the works of art and votive offerings; for he says that he was present and saw paintings that had been flung to the ground and saw the soldiers playing dice on these. Among the paintings he names that of Dionysus by Aristeides,425 to which, according to some writers, the saying, "Nothing in comparison with the Dionysus," referred;426 and also the painting of Heracles in torture in the robe of Deianeira. Now I have not seen the latter, but I saw the Dionysus, a most beautiful work, on the walls of the temple of Ceres in Rome; but when recently the temple was burned,427 the painting perished with it. And I may almost say that the most and best of the other dedicatory offerings at Rome came from there; and the cities in the neighborhood of Rome also obtained some; for Mummius, being magnanimous rather than fond of art, as they say, readily shared with those who asked.428 And when Leucullus built the Temple of Good Fortune and a portico, he asked Mummius for the use of the statues which he had, saying that he would adorn the temple with them until the dedication and then give them back. However, he did not give them back, but dedicated them to the goddess, and then bade Mummius to take them away if he wished. But Mummius took it lightly, for he cared nothing about them, so that he gained more repute than the man who dedicated them. Now after Corinth had remained deserted for a long time,429 it was restored again, because of its favorable position, by the deified Caesar, who colonized it with people that belonged for the most part to the freedmen class. And when these were removing the ruins and at the same time digging open the graves, they found numbers of terra-cotta reliefs, and also many bronze vessels. And since they admired the workmanship they left no grave unransacked; so that, well supplied with such things and disposing of them at a high price, they filled Rome with Corinthian "mortuaries," for thus they called the things taken from the graves, and in particular the earthenware. Now at the outset the earthenware was very highly prized, like the bronzes of Corinthian workmanship, but later they ceased to care much for them, since the supply of earthen vessels failed and most of them were not even well executed. The city of the Corinthians, then, was always great and wealthy, and it was well equipped with men skilled both in the affairs of state and in the craftsman's arts; for both here and in Sicyon the arts of painting and modelling and all such arts of the craftsman flourished most. The city had territory, however, that was not very fertile, but rifted and rough; and from this fact all have called Corinth "beetling," and use the proverb, “"Corinth is both beetle-browed and full of hollows."”Source unknown [24] Orneae is named after the river that flows past it. It is deserted now, although formerly it was well peopled, and had a temple of Priapus that was held in honor; and it was from Orneae that the Euphronius430 who composed the Priapeia calls the god "Priapus the Orneatan." Orneae is situated above the plain of the Sicyonians, but the country was possessed by the Argives. Araethyrea is the country which is now called Phliasia; and near the mountain Celossa431 it had a city of the same name as the country; but the inhabitants later emigrated from here, and at a distance of thirty stadia founded a city which they called Phlius. A part of the mountain Celossa is Mt. Carneates, whence the Asopus takes its beginning—the river that flows past Sicyonia, and forms the Asopian country, which is a part of Sicyonia. There is also an Asopus that flows past Thebes and Plataea and Tanagra, and there is another in the Trachinian Heracleia that flows past a village which they call Parasopii, and there is a fourth in Paros. Phlius is situated in the center of a circle formed by Sicyonia, Argeia, Cleonae and Stymphalus. In Phlius and Sicyon the temple of Dia is held in honor; and Dia is their name for Hebe. [25] In earlier times Sicyon was called Mecone, and in still earlier times Aegiali,432 but Demetrius rebuilt it upon a hill strongly fortified by nature about twenty stadia (others say twelve) from the sea;433 and the old settlement, which has a harbor, is a naval station. The River Nemea forms the boundary between Sicyonia and Corinthia. Sicyon was ruled by tyrants most of the time, but its tyrants were always reasonable men, among whom the most illustrious was Aratus,434 who not only set the city free,435 but also ruled over the Achaeans, who voluntarily gave him the authority,436 and he increased the league by adding to it both his native Sicyon and the other cities near it. But Hyperesia and the cities that come in their order after it, which the poet mentions,437 and the Aegialus as far as Dyme and the boundaries of Eleia already belonged to the Achaeans.438 7. In antiquity this country was under the mastery of the Ionians, who were sprung from the Athenians; and in antiquity it was called Aegialeia, and the inhabitants Aegialeians, but later it was called Ionia after the Ionians, just as Attica also was called Ionia439 after Ion the son of Xuthus. They say that Hellen was the son of Deucalion, and that he was lord of the people between the Peneius and the Asopus in the region of Phthia and gave over his rule to the eldest of his sons, but that he sent the rest of them to different places outside, each to seek a settlement for himself. One of these sons, Dorus, united the Dorians about Parnassus into one state, and at his death left them named after himself; another, Xuthus, who had married the daughter of Erechtheus, founded the Tetrapolis of Attica, consisting of Oenoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorynthus. One of the sons of Xuthus, Achaeus, who had committed involuntary manslaughter, fled to Lacedaemon and brought it about that the people there were called Achaeans; and Ion conquered the Thracians under Eumolpus, and thereby gained such high repute that the Athenians turned over their government to him. At first Ion divided the people into four tribes, but later into four occupations: four he designated as farmers, others as artisans, others as sacred officers, and a fourth group as the guards. And he made several regulations of this kind, and at his death left his own name to the country. But the country had then come to be so populous that the Athenians even sent forth a colony of Ionians to the Peloponnesus, and caused the country which they occupied to be called Ionia after themselves instead of Aegialus; and the men were divided into twelve cities and called Ionians instead of Aegialeians. But after the return of the Heracleidae they were driven out by the Achaeans and went back again to Athens; and from there they sent forth with the Codridae the Ionian colony to Asia, and these founded twelve cities on the seaboard of Caria and Lydia, thus dividing themselves into the same number of parts as the cities they had occupied in the Peloponnesus. Now the Achaeans were Phthiotae in race, but they lived in Lacedaemon; and when the Heracleidae prevailed, the Achaeans were won over by Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, as I have said before,440 attacked the Ionians, and proving themselves more powerful than the Ionians drove them out and took possession of the land themselves; and they kept the division of the country the same as it was when they received it. And they were so powerful that, although the Heracleidae, from whom they had revolted, held the rest of the Peloponnesus, still they held out against one and all, and named the country Achaea. Now from Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued under the rule of kings; then, under a democratic government, they became so famous for their constitutions that the Italiotes, 441 after the uprising against the Pythagoreians,442 actually borrowed most of their usages from the Achaeans.443 And after the battle at Leuctra the Thebans turned over to them the arbitration of the disputes which the cities had with one another; and later, when their league was dissolved by the Macedonians, they gradually recovered themselves. When Pyrrhus made his expedition to Italy,444 four cities came together and began a new league, among which were Patrae and Dyme;445 and then they began to add some of the twelve cities, except Olenus and Helice, the former having refused to join and the latter having been wiped out by a wave from the sea.446 [2] For the sea was raised by an earthquake and it submerged Helice, and also the temple of the Heliconian Poseidon, whom the Ionians447 worship even to this day, offering there448 the Pan-Ionian sacrifices. And, as some suppose, Homer recalls this sacrifice when he says: “"but he breathed out his spirit and bellowed, as when a dragged bull bellows round the altar of the Heliconian lord."
”449And they infer that the poet lived after the Ionian colonization, since he mentions the Pan-Ionian sacrifice, which the Ionians perform in honor of the Heliconian Poseidon in the country of the Prienians; for the Prienians themselves are also said to be from Helice; and indeed as king for this sacrifice they appoint a Prienian young man to superintend the sacred rites. But still more they base the supposition in question on what the poet says about the bull; for the lonians believe that they obtain omens in connection with this sacrifice only when the bull bellows while being sacrificed. But the opponents of the supposition apply the above-mentioned inferences concerning the bull and the sacrifice to Helice, on the ground that these were customary there and that the poet was merely comparing the rites that were celebrated there. Helice was submerged by the sea two years before the battle at Leuctra. And Eratosthenes says that he himself saw the place, and that the ferrymen say that there was a bronze Poseidon in the strait, standing erect, holding a hippo-campus in his hand, which was perilous for those who fished with nets. And Heracleides450 says that the submersion took place by night in his time, and, although the city was twelve stadia distant from the sea, this whole district together with the city was hidden from sight; and two thousand men who had been sent by the Achaeans were unable to recover the dead bodies; and they divided the territory of Helice among the neighbors; and the submersion was the result of the anger of Poseidon, for the lonians who had been driven out of Helice sent men to ask the inhabitants of Helice particularly for the statue of Poseidon, or, if not that, for the model of the temple; and when the inhabitants refused to give either, the Ionians sent word to the general council of the Achaeans; but although the assembly voted favorably, yet even so the inhabitants of Helice refused to obey; and the submersion resulted the following winter; but the Achaeans later gave the model of the temple to the lonians. Hesiod451 mentions still another Helice, in Thessaly. [3] Now for twenty452 years the Achaeans continued to have a general secretary and two generals, elected annually; and with them a common council was convened at one place (it was called Amarium),453 in which these, as did the Ionians before them, dealt with affairs of common interest; then they decided to elect only one general. And when Aratus was general he took the Acrocorinthus away from Antigonus454 and added the city of Corinth to the Achaean League, just as he had added his native city; and he also took over the Megarians; and breaking up the tyrannies in the several cities he made the peoples who were thus set free members of the Achaean League. And he set the Peloponnesus free from its tyrannies, so that Argos, Hermion, Phlius, and Megalopolis, the largest city in Arcadia, were added to the League; and it was at this time that the League reached the height of its power. It was the time when the Romans, after their expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily,455 made their expedition against the Galatae456 who lived in the region of the Padus River. But although the Achaean League persisted rather firmly until the time of the generalship of Philopoemen, yet it was gradually dissolved, since by this time the Romans were in possession of the whole of Greece, and they did not deal with the several states in the same way, but wished to preserve some and to destroy others. Then he457 tells the cause of his enlarging upon the subject of the Achaeans, saying that, although they increased in power to the point of surpassing even the Lacedaemonians, they are not as well known as they deserve to be. [4] The order of the places in which the Achaeans settled, after dividing the country into twelve parts, is as follows:458 First after Sicyon lies Pellene; then, second, Aegeira; third, Aegae, which has a temple of Poseidon; fourth, Bura; after Bura, Helice, whither the Ionians fled for refuge after they were conquered in battle by the Achaeans, and whence at last they were expelled; and, after Helice, Aegium and Rhypes and Patrae459 and Pharae;460 then Olenus, past which flows the Peirus, a large river; then Dyme and Tritaea.461 Now the Ionians lived in villages, but the Achaeans founded cities; and to certain of these they later united others, transferring them from the other divisions, as, for example, Aegae to Aegeira (the inhabitants, however, were called Aegaeans), and Olenus to Dyme. Traces of the old settlement of the Olenians are shown between Patrae and Dyme; and here, too, is the notable temple of Asclepius, which is forty stadia distant from Dyme and eighty from Patrae. Of the same name as this Aegae is the Aegae in Euboea; and of the same name as Olenus is the settlement in Aetolia, this too preserving only traces of its former self. Now the poet does not mention the Olenus in Achaea, just as he does not mention several other inhabited places in the region of the Aegialus, although he speaks of them in a rather general way: “"And through all the Aegialus and about broad Helice."
”462But he mentions the Aetolian Olenus, when he says: “"those who dwelt in Pleuron and Olenus."
”463And he speaks of both places called Aegae: the Achaean Aegae, when he says, “"yet they bring up gifts for thee into both Helice and Aegae"
”464but when he says, “"Aegae, where is his famous palace in the deeps of the mere,"
”465“"where Poseidon halted his horses,"
”466it is better to take him as meaning the Aegae in Euboea, from which it is probable that also the Aegean Sea got its name; and here too the poet has placed the activities of Poseidon in connection with the Trojan War. Close to the Achaean Aegae flows the Crathis River, which is increased by the waters of two other rivers; and it gets its name from the fact that it is a mixture,467 as does also the Crathis in Italy. [5] Each of the twelve divisions consisted of seven or eight communities, so populous was the country. Pellene is situated sixty stadia above the sea, and it is a strong fortress. But there is also a village Pellene, from which come the Pellenic cloaks, which they were also wont to set up as prizes at the games; it lies between Aegium and Pellene. But Pellana is different from these two; it is a Laconian place, and its territory inclines, approximately, towards the territory of Megalopolis. Aegeira is situated on a hill. Bura, which was swallowed up in an, earthquake, is situated above the sea at a distance of about forty stadia; and they say that it was from the spring Sybaris in Bura that the river468 in Italy got its name. Aega (for Aegae is also called thus) is now uninhabited, and the city469 is in the possession of the people of Aegium. But Aegium has a considerable population. The story is told that Zeus was nursed by a goat there, just as Aratus says: “"Sacred goat, which, in story, didst hold thy breast o'er Zeus;"
”470and he goes on to say that “"the interpreters call her the Olenian goat of Zeus,"
”471thus clearly indicating that the place is near Olene. Here too is Ceraunia,472 which is situated on a high rock. These places belong to the people of Aegium, and so does Helice, and the Amarium, where the Achaeans met to deliberate on affairs of common interest. And the Selinus River flows through the territory of Aegium; it bears the same name as the river that flows in Ephesus past the Artemisium, and also the river in the Eleia of today473 that flows past the plot of land which Xenophon says he bought for Artemis in accordance with an oracle.474 And there is another Selinus; it flows past the territory of the Hyblaean Megarians,475 whom the Carthaginians forced to migrate. As for the remaining cities, or divisions, of the Achaeans, one of them, Rhypes, is uninhabited, and the territory called Rhypis was held by the people of Aegium and the people of Pharae. Aeschylus, too, says somewhere: “"Sacred Bura and thunder-smitten Rhypes."
”476Myscellus, the founder of Croton, was from Rhypes. And Leuctrum too, a deme of Rhypes, belonged to the district of Rhypis. After Rhypes comes Patrae, a noteworthy city; between the two, however, is Rhium (also Antirrhium),477 which is forty stadia distant from Patrae. And recently the Romans, after their victory at Actium, settled a considerable part of the army at Patrae; and it is exceptionally populous at present, since it is a Roman colony; and it has a fairly good anchoring-place. Next comes Dyme, a city without a harbor, the farthest of all towards the west, a fact from which it takes its name.478 But in earlier times it was called Stratos. The boundary between it and the Eleian country, Buprasium, is formed by the Larisus River, which flows from a mountain. Some writers call this mountain Scollis, but Homer calls it the Olenian Rock. When Antimachus calls Dyme "Cauconian," some interpret "Cauconian" as an epithet derived from the Cauconians, since the Cauconians extended as far as Dyme, as I have already said above,479 but others as derived from a River Caucon, just as Thebes is called "Dircaean" and "Asopian," Argos "Inacheian," and Troy "Simuntian." But shortly before my time Dyme received as colonists a mixed group of people whom Pompey still had left over from the crowd of pirates, after he broke up all piracy and settled some of the pirates at Soli in Cilicia and others in other places—and in particular at Dyme. Phara borders on the territory of Dyme. The people of this Phara are called Phareis, but those of the Messenian city Pharaeatae; and in the territory of Phara is a spring Dirce which bears the same name as the spring at Thebes. But Olenus is deserted; it lies between Patrae and Dyme; and its territory is held by the people of Dyme. Then comes Araxus, the promontory of the Eleian country, one thousand and thirty stadia from the isthmus. 8. Arcadia lies in the middle of the Peloponnesus; and most of the country which it includes is mountainous. The greatest mountain in it is Cyllene; at any rate some say that its perpendicular height is twenty stadia, though others say about fifteen. The Arcadian tribes—the Azanes, the Parrhasians, and other such peoples—are reputed to be the most ancient tribes of the Greeks. But on account of the complete devastation of the country it would be inappropriate to speak at length about these tribes; for the cities, which in earlier times had become famous, were wiped out by the continuous wars, and the tillers of the soil have been disappearing even since the times when most of the cities were united into what was called the "Great City."480 But now the Great City itself has suffered the fate described by the comic poet: “"The Great City is a great desert."
”481But there are ample pastures for cattle, particularly for horses and asses that are used as stallions. And the Arcadian breed of horses, like the Argolic and the Epidaurian, is most excellent. And the deserted lands of the Aetolians and Acarnanians are also well adapted to horse-raising—no less so than Thessaly. [2] Now Mantineia was made famous by Epameinondas, who conquered the Lacedaemonians in the second battle, in which he himself lost his life. But Mantineia itself, as also Orchomenus, Heraea, Cleitor, Pheneus, Stymphalus, Maenalus, Methydrium, Caphyeis, and Cynaetha, no longer exist; or else traces or signs of them are scarcely to be seen. But Tegea still endures fairly well, and so does the temple of the Alean Athene; and the temple of Zeus Lycaeus situated near Mt. Lycaeum is also honored to a slight extent. But three of the cities mentioned by the poet, “"Rhipe and Stratie, and windy Enispe,"
”482are not only hard to find, but are of no use to any who find them, because they are deserted. [3] Famous mountains, in addition to Cyllene, are Pholoe, Lycaeum, Maenalus, and the Parthenium, as it is called, which extends from the territory of Tegea down to the Argive country. [4] I have already mentioned the marvellous circumstances pertaining to the Alpeius and the Eurotas,483 and also to the Erasinus, which now flows underground from the Stymphalian Lake,484 and issues forth into the Argive country, although in earlier times it had no outlet, since the "berethra,"485 which the Arcadians call "zerethra," were stopped up and did not admit of the waters being carried off so that the city of the Stymphalians486 is now fifty stadia487 distant from the lake, although then it was situated on the lake. But the contrary was the case with the Ladon, since its stream was once checked because of the blocking up of its sources; for the "berethra" near Pheneus, through which it flowed, fell in as the result of an earthquake and checked the stream as far down into the depths of the earth as the veins which supplied its source. Thus some writers tell it. But Eratosthenes says that near Pheneus the river Anias,488 as it is called, makes a lake of the region in front of the city and flows down into sink-holes, which are called "zerethra"; and when these are stopped up the water sometimes overflows into the plains, and when they are again opened up it rushes out of the plains all at once and empties into the Ladon and the Alpheius, so that even at Olympia the land around the temple was once inundated, while the lake was reduced; and the Erasinus, which flows past Stympllalus, sinks and flows beneath the mountain489 and reappears in the Argive land; and it was on this account, also, that Iphicrates, when he was besieging Stymphalus and accomplishing nothing, tried to block up the sink with a large quantity of sponges with which he had supplied himself, but desisted when Zeus sent an omen from the sky. And near Pheneus is also the water of the Styx, as it is called—a small stream of deadly water which is held to be sacred. So much may be said concerning Arcadia. [5] Polybius490 states that the distance from Maleae towards the north as far as the Ister is about ten thousand stadia, but Artemidorus corrects the statement in an appropriate manner by saying that from Maleae to Aegium is a journey of fourteen hundred stadia, and thence to Cyrrha a voyage of two hundred, and thence through Heracleia to Thaumaci a journey of five hundred, and then to Larisa and the Peneius three hundred and forty, and then through Tempe to the outlets of the Peneius two hundred and forty, and then to Thessaloniceia six hundred and sixty, and thence through Eidomene and Stobi and Dardanii to the Ister three thousand two hundred. According to Artemidorus, therefore, the distance from the Ister to Maleae amounts to six thousand five hundred and forty stadia. The cause of this excess491 is that he does not give the measurement of the shortest route, but of the chance route which one of the generals took. And it is not out of place, perhaps, to add also the colonizers, mentioned by Ephorus, of the peoples who settled in the Peloponnesus after the return of the Heracleidae: Aletes, the colonizer of Corinth, Phalces of Sicyon, Tisamenus of Achaea, Oxylus of Elis, Cresphontes of Messene, Eurysthenes and Procles of Lacedaemon, Temenus and Cissus of Argos, and Agaeus and Deïphontes of the region about Acte.492
