deserved it did not meet with good fortune; some fell conspiring
against the tyrant Lachares, and others counselled the seizure of the
Piræus when the Macedonians guarded it, but before they could carry
out their plan they were informed against by their fellow-conspirators
and put to death. Here too are the tombs of those who fell at Corinth:
and it was palpably shewn here (and afterwards at Leuctra) by the
Deity, that those whom the Greeks call brave were nothing without
good fortune, since the Lacedæmonians who had formerly conquered the
Corinthians and Athenians, and moreover the Argives and Bœotians, were
afterwards so completely routed at Leuctra by the Bœotians alone. And
next to the tombs of those that fell at Corinth, some elegiac lines
testify that the pillar was erected not only to them, but also to
those that died at Eubœa and Chios, as also to some whom it declares
were slain in the remote parts of the continent of Asia Minor, and in
Sicily. And all the Generals are inscribed on it except Nicias, and the
Platæan soldiers and citizens together. Nicias was passed over for the
following reason: I give the same account as Philistus, who said that
Demosthenes made conditions of surrender for everybody but himself,
and when he was taken attempted suicide, whereas Nicias surrendered
voluntarily. And so his name was not written on the pillar, as he was
shewn to be a willing captive and not a man fit for war. On another
pillar are the names of those who fought in Thrace, and at Megara,
and when Alcibiades persuaded the Mantinæans and Eleans to revolt
from the Lacedæmonians, and those who conquered the Syracusans before
Demosthenes came to Sicily. Those also are buried here who fought the
naval engagement at the Hellespont, and those who fought against the
Macedonians at Chæronea, and those who served with Cleon at Amphipolis,
and those who fell at Delium in the territory of the Tanagræans, and
those whom Leosthenes led to Thessaly, and those who sailed to Cyprus
with Cimon, and those, thirteen only, who with Olympiodorus drove out
the Macedonian garrison. And the Athenians say that, when the Romans
were fighting against one of their neighbours, they sent a small force
to their aid, and certainly afterwards there were five Attic triremes
present at the sea-fight between the Romans and Carthaginians. These
also have their tomb here. The exploits of Tolmides and his men, and
the manner of their death, I have already described: but let any one
to whom their memory is dear know that they too lie buried on this
road. They too lie here who on the same day won under Cimon a glorious
victory both by land and sea. Here too lie Conon and Timotheus,
father and son, second only to Miltiades and Cimon in their brilliant
feats. Here too lie Zeno the son of Mnaseas, and Chrysippus of Soli,
and Nicias the son of Nicomedes, (the best painter of animals in his
day,) and Harmodius and Aristogiton who murdered Hipparchus the son of
Pisistratus, and the orators Ephialtes, (who did his best to discredit
the legislation of the Areopagus,) and Lycurgus the son of Lycophron.
This Lycurgus put into the public treasury 6,500 talents more than
Pericles the son of Xanthippus got together, and furnished elaborate
apparatus for the processions of Athene, and golden Victories, and
dresses for 100 maidens, and for war arms and darts, and 400 triremes
for naval engagements. And as for buildings he finished the theatre
though others began it, and during his term of office built docks at
the Piræus, and a gymnasium at the Lyceum. All his silver and gold work
Lachares plundered when he was in power: but the buildings remain to
this day.

CHAPTER XXX.

Before the entrance into the Academy is an altar of Eros, with the
inscription that Charmus was the first of the Athenians to offer
votive offerings to Eros. And they say that the altar in the city
called the altar of Anteros is the offering of the resident aliens,
for Meles an Athenian, tired of Timagoras, a resident alien who was
enamoured of him, bade him go to the highest part of the rock and
throw himself down. And Timagoras careless of his life, and wishing
in all things to gratify the stripling’s commands, threw himself down
accordingly. But Meles, when he saw that Timagoras was dead, was so
stricken with remorse, that he threw himself down from the same rock,
and so perished. And in consequence it was ordained that the resident
aliens should worship as a god Anteros, the avenger of Timagoras. And
in the Academy is an altar of Prometheus, and they run from it to the
city with lighted torches. The game is to keep the torch alight as
they run. And if the torch goes out there is no longer victory to the
first, but the second wins instead. And if his is out, then the third.
And so on. And if the torches of all go out, then there is no one who
can win the game. There is also an altar of the Muses, and another of
Hermes, and in the interior one of Athene, and another of Hercules.
And there is an olive-tree, which is said to have been the second that
ever was. And not far from the Academy is the tomb of Plato, to whom
the Deity foretold that he would be most excellent in Philosophy, and
foretold it in the following way. Socrates, the night before Plato was
going to be his pupil, dreamed that a swan flew into his bosom. Now
the swan is a bird that has a fame for music, for they say that Cycnus
[_Swan_], king of the Ligyans across the Eridanus in Celtic territory,
was fond of music, and when he died was at Apollo’s desire changed into
a bird. I daresay a musical man reigned over the Ligyans, but I can
hardly believe that a man became a bird. Here too is seen the tower of
Timon, who was the only person who thought one can be happy in no way
except by shunning one’s kind. There is also shewn here a place called
Colonus, sacred to Poseidon the creator of horses, the first place in
Attica which they say Œdipus came to: this is however different from
the account of Homer, still it is the account they give. There is also
an altar of Poseidon God of Horses and of Athene Goddess of Horses, and
a hero-chapel of Pirithous and Theseus and Œdipus and Adrastus. But
Poseidon’s grove and temple were burnt by Antigonus, when he invaded
Attica and ravaged it with his army.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Now the small townships of Attica, founded by haphazard, have the
following records. The Alimusii have a temple to Law-giving Demeter and
her daughter Proserpine; and in Zoster [_Belt_] by the sea is an altar
to Athene and Apollo and Artemis and Leto. They say that Leto did not
give birth to her children here, but loosed her belt as if she were
going to, and that was why the place got that name. The Prospaltii also
have a temple to Proserpine and Demeter, and the Anagyrasians have a
temple to the Mother of the Gods. And at Cephalæ Castor and Pollux are
held in highest honour: for they call them the Great Gods.

  And the people of Prasiæ have a temple of Apollo: here came (they
say) the firstfruits of the Hyperboreans, handed over by them to the
Arimaspians, and by the Arimaspians to the Issedones, and brought
thence by the Scythians to Sinope, and thence carried by the Greeks to
Prasiæ, and by the Athenians to Delos: these firstfruits are hidden
in an ear of wheat, and may be looked at by nobody. At Prasiæ there
is also a monument to Erysichthon, who died on his passage home, as
he sailed back from Delos after his mission there. That Cranaus the
king of the Athenians was expelled by Amphictyon, though he was his
kinsman, I have before narrated: and they say that when he fled with
his adherents to the Lamprian township he was killed and buried there:
and his tomb is there to this day. And Ion the son of Xuthus, (for he
too dwelt in Attica, and commanded the Athenians in the war against
the Eleusinians,) has a tomb in the place called Potami.

  So far tradition goes. And the Phlyenses have altars to
Dionysus-giving Apollo and Lightgiving Artemis, and to Dionysus
Crowned with flowers, and to the Nymphs of the River Ismenus, and to
Earth whom they call the Great Goddess: and another temple has altars
to Fruitbearing Demeter, and Zeus the Protector of Property, and
Tithronian Athene, and Proserpine the Firstborn, and to the goddesses
called _The Venerable Ones_, (_i.e._ the Eumenides.) And at Myrrhinus
there is a statue to Colænian Artemis. And the Athmonenses worship
Amarynthian Artemis. And when I enquired of the Interpreters and
Experts as to these Goddesses, I could obtain no accurate information,
but I conjecture as follows. Amarynthus is in Eubœa, and there too they
worship the Amarynthian Artemis. And the Athenians at her feast bestow
as much honour on her as the Eubœans. In this way I think she got her
name among the Athmonenses, and Colænian Artemis at Myrrhinus from
Colænus. I have written already elsewhere that it is the opinion of
many in the townships that there were kings at Athens before Cecrops.
Now Colænus is the name of a king who ruled at Athens before Cecrops,
according to the tradition of the people of Myrrhinus. And there is a
township at Acharnæ: the Acharnians worship among other gods Apollo of
the Streets and Hercules. And there is an altar to Athene Hygiea: they
also worship Athene by the name of _Horse-lover_, and Dionysus by that
of _Songster_, and _Ivy-God_, for they say ivy grew here first.

CHAPTER XXXII.

And the mountains of Attica are Pentelicus, famous for its
stonequarries, and Parnes, which affords good hunting of wild boars
and bears, and Hymettus, which is the best place for bees next to the
territory of the Alazones. For among the Alazones the bees are so tame
that they live with the people, and go freely about for their food
anywhere, and are not confined in hives: and they make honey anywhere,
and it is so firm and compact that you cannot separate it from the
comb. And on the mountains of Attica also are statues of the gods.
At Pentelicus there is a statue of Athene, and at Hymettus one of
Zeus of Hymettus: there are altars also to Rainy Zeus, and Apollo the
Fore-seer. And at Parnes there is a brazen statue of Parnesian Zeus,
and an altar to Semalean Zeus. There is also another altar at Parnes,
and they sacrifice on it sometimes to Zeus the Rainy, sometimes to Zeus
the Averter of Ill. There is also the small mountain called Anchesmus,
and on it the statue of Anchesmian Zeus.

  Before I turn to the description of the islands, I will enter
again into the history of the townships. The township of Marathon
is about equidistant from Athens and Carystus in Eubœa. It was this
part of Attica that the Persians landed at, and were defeated, and
lost some of their ships as they were putting out to sea in retreat.
And in the plain is the tomb of the Athenians, and on it are pillars
with the names of the dead according to their tribes. And another
for the Platæans of Bœotia and their slaves: for this was the first
engagement in which slaves fought. And there is apart a monument to
Miltiades the son of Cimon, whose death occurred afterwards, when he
failed to capture Paros, and was on that account put on his trial by
the Athenians. Here every night one may hear horses neighing and men
fighting: those who come on purpose to see the sight suffer for their
curiosity, but if they are there as spectators accidentally the wrath
of the gods harms them not. And the people of Marathon highly honour
those that fell in the battle, calling them heroes, as also they
pay honours to Marathon (from whom the township gets its name), and
Hercules, whom they say they first of all the Greeks worshipped as a
god. And it chanced, as they say, in the battle that a man of rustic
appearance and dress appeared, who slew many of the Persians with a
ploughshare, and vanished after the fight: and when the Athenians made
enquiry of the oracle, the god gave no other answer, but bade them
honour the hero Echetlæus. And a trophy of white stone was erected
there. And the Athenians say that they buried the Persians, (it being
a matter of decency to bury in the ground a man’s corpse,) but I could
find no tomb. For there was no mound nor any other visible trace of
burial. So they must have carried them to some hole and thrown them
in pell mell. And there is at Marathon a fountain called Macaria, and
this is the tradition about it. When Hercules fled from Eurystheus
at Tiryns, he went to his friend Ceyx the king of Trachis. And when
Hercules left mankind Eurystheus asked for his children, and Ceyx sent
them to Athens, pleading his own weakness, and suggesting that Theseus
might be able to protect them. And coming to Athens as suppliants,
they brought about the first war between the Peloponnesians and the
Athenians, as Theseus would not give them up to Eurystheus, though he
begged hard for them. And they say that an oracle told the Athenians
that one of the children of Hercules must voluntarily die, or else they
would not get the victory. Hereupon Macaria, the daughter of Deianira
and Hercules, sacrificed herself that the Athenians might conquer in
the war, and the fountain gets its name from her. And there is at
Marathon a lake for the most part muddy: into it the fugitive Persians
fell not knowing the way, and most of the slaughter happened they say
here. And above the lake are the mangers of the horses of Artaphernes
in stone, and among the rocks vestiges of a tent. And a river flows
from the lake, affording pleasant water to the herds that come to the
lake, but at its outlet into the sea it is salt and full of sea fish.
And at a little distance from the plain is a mountain of Pan, and a
cave well worth seeing. The entrance to it is narrow, but when you get
well in there are rooms and baths, and what is called Pan’s herd of
goats, rocks very like goats in shape.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

And not far from Marathon is Brauron, where they say Iphigenia, the
daughter of Agamemnon, landed in her flight from the Tauri, bringing
with her the statue of Artemis, and, having left it here, went on
to Athens and afterwards to Argos. Here is indeed an ancient statue
of Artemis. But those who have the Tauric statue of the goddess in
my opinion, I shall show in another part of my work. And about
sixty stades from Marathon is Rhamnus, as you go along the shore to
Oropus. And there are buildings near the sea for men, and a little
way from the sea on the cliff is a temple of Nemesis, who is the most
implacable of all the gods to haughty men. And it seems that those
Persians who landed at Marathon met with vengeance from this goddess:
for despising the difficulty of capturing Athens, they brought Parian
marble to make a trophy of, as if they had already conquered. This
marble Phidias made into a statue of Nemesis, and on the goddess’
head is a crown with some figures of stags, and some small statues of
Victory: in one hand she has a branch of an apple tree, in the other
a bowl, on which some Ethiopians are carved. As to these Ethiopians I
could not myself conjecture what they referred to, nor could I accept
the account of those who thought they knew, who say that they were
carved on the bowl because of the river Oceanus: for the Ethiopians
dwelt by it, and Oceanus was Nemesis’ father. For indeed Oceanus is
not a river but a sea, the remotest sea sailed on by men, and on
its shore live the Spaniards and Celts, and in it is the island of
Britain. But the remotest Ethiopians live beyond Syene by the Red Sea,
and are fisheaters, from which circumstance the gulf near which they
live is called Fish-eater. But the most upright ones[7] inhabit the
city Meroe, and what is called the Ethiopian plain: these shew the
Table of the Sun, but have no sea or river except the Nile. And there
are other Ethiopians (who live near the Mauri), that extend to the
territory of the Nasamones. For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus calls
the Atlantes, but geographers call Lixitæ, are the remotest of the
Libyans who live near Mount Atlas. They sow nothing, and live on wild
vines. And neither these Ethiopians nor the Nasamones have any river.
For the water near Mount Atlas, though it flows in three directions,
makes no river, for the sand sucks it all in. So the Ethiopians live
by no river or ocean. And the water from Mount Atlas is muddy, and at
its source there are crocodiles two cubits long, and when men approach
they dive down into the water. And many have the idea that this water
coming up again out of the sand makes the river Nile in Egypt. Now
Mount Atlas is so high that its peaks are said to touch the sky, and
it is inaccessible from the water and trees which are everywhere. The
neighbourhood of the Nasamones has been explored, but we know of no one
who has sailed by the parts near the sea. But let this account suffice.
Neither this statue of Nemesis nor any other of the old statues of
her are delineated with wings, not even the most holy statues at
Smyrna: but in later times people, wishing to shew this goddess as
especially following upon Love, gave Nemesis wings as well as Love. I
shall describe what is at the base of the statue, only clearing up the
following matter. They say Nemesis was the mother of Helen, but Leda
suckled her and brought her up: but her father the Greeks generally
think was Zeus and not Tyndareus. Phidias having heard this represented
on the base of the statue Helen being carried by Leda to Nemesis, and
Tyndareus and his sons, and a man called Hippeus with a horse standing
by. There too are Agamemnon and Menelaus, and Pyrrhus the son of
Achilles, the first husband of Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Orestes
was passed over for the murder of his mother, though Hermione remained
with him all her life and bore him a son. And next come Epochus, and
another young man. I have heard nothing else of them than that they are
the brothers of Œnoe, who gave her name to the township.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The land about Oropus between Attica and Tanagra, which originally
belonged to Bœotia, is now Athenian. The Athenians fought for it
continually, but got no firm hold of it till Philip gave it them after
the capture of Thebes. The city is near the sea and has played no great
part in history: about 12 stades from it is the temple of Amphiaraus.
And it is said that, when Amphiaraus fled from Thebes, the earth opened
and swallowed up him and his chariot: but it did not they say happen
here but at a place called Harma (_Chariot_), on the way from Thebes to
Chalcis. And the Oropians first made Amphiaraus a god, and since all
the Greeks have so accounted him. I can mention others who were once
men, who have honours paid to them as gods, and cities dedicated to
them, as Eleus in the Chersonese to Protesilaus, and Lebadea in Bœotia
to Trophonius: so Amphiaraus has a temple at Oropus, and a statue in
white stone. And the altar has five divisions: one belongs to Hercules
and Zeus and Pæonian Apollo, and another is dedicated to heroes and
heroes’ wives. And the third belongs to Vesta and Hermes and Amphiaraus
and the sons of Amphilochus: but Alcmæon, owing to the murder of
Eriphyle, has no honour with Amphiaraus, nor with Amphilochus. And
the fourth division of the altar belongs to Aphrodite and Panacea,
and also to Jason and Hygiea and Pæonian Athene. And the fifth has
been set apart for the Nymphs and Pan, and the rivers Achelous and
Cephisus. And Amphilochus has also an altar at Athens, and at Mallus
in Cilicia an oracle most veracious even in my day. And the Oropians
have a fountain near the temple, which they call Amphiaraus’, but they
neither sacrifice at it, nor use it for lustrations or washing their
hands. But when any disease has been cured by means of the oracle, then
it is customary to throw into the fountain some gold or silver coin:
and here they say Amphiaraus became a god. And the Gnossian Iophon,
one of the interpreters of Antiquities, has preserved some oracular
responses of Amphiaraus in Hexameters, given he says to the Argives
who were despatched to Thebes. These lines had irresistible attraction
for the general public. Now besides those who are said of old to have
been inspired by Apollo, there was no oracle-giving seer, but there
were people good at explaining dreams, and inspecting the flights of
birds and the entrails of victims. Amphiaraus was I think especially
excellent in divination by dreams: and it is certain when he became
a god that he instituted divination by dreams. And whoever comes to
consult Amphiaraus has first (such is the custom) to purify himself,
that is to sacrifice to the god. They sacrifice then to all the other
gods whose names are on the altar. And after all these preliminary
rites, they sacrifice a ram, and wrapping themselves up in its skin go
to sleep, and expect divine direction through a dream.

CHAPTER XXXV.

And the Athenians have various islands not far from Attica, one called
after Patroclus, about which I have already given an account, and
another a little beyond Sunium, as you sail leaving Attica on the left:
here they say Helen landed after the capture of Ilium, so the Island
is called Helena. And Salamis lies over against Eleusis and extends
towards Megaris. The name Salamis was they say originally given to
this island from Salamis the mother of Asopus, and afterwards the
Æginetans under Telamon inhabited the island: and Philæus, the son
of Eurysaces and grandson of Ajax, became an Athenian and handed it
over to Athens. And many years afterwards the Athenians expelled the
people of Salamis, condemning them for having been slack of duty in
the war with Cassander, and for having surrendered their city to the
Macedonians more from choice than compulsion: and Ascetades (who had
been chosen as Governor of Salamis) they condemned to death, and swore
that for all time they would remember this treason of the people of
Salamis. And there are yet ruins of the market, and a temple of Ajax,
and his statue in ebony. And divine honours are to this day paid by
the Athenians to Ajax and Eurysaces: the latter has also an altar at
Athens. And a stone is shown at Salamis not far from the harbour: on
which they say Telamon sate and gazed at the vessel in which his sons
were sailing away to Aulis, to join the general expedition of the
Greeks against Ilium. And the natives of Salamis say that after the
death of Ajax a flower first appeared on their island: white and red,
smaller than the lily especially in its petals, with the same letters
on it as the hyacinth.[8] And I have heard the tradition of the Æolians
(who afterwards inhabited Ilium) as to the controversy about the
arms of Achilles, and they say that after the shipwreck of Odysseus
these arms were washed ashore by the sea near the tomb of Ajax. And
some particulars as to his great size were given me by a Mysian. He
told me that the sea washed his tomb which was on the seashore, and
made entrance to it easy, and he bade me conjecture the huge size of
his body by the following detail. His kneepans, (which the doctors
call _mills_,) were the size of the quoits used by any lad practising
for the Pentathlum. I do not wonder at the size of those who are
called Cabares, who, remotest of the Celts, live in a region thinly
peopled from the extreme cold, for their corpses are not a bit bigger
than Egyptian ones. I will now relate some remarkable cases of dead
bodies. Among the Magnesians at Lethæus one of the citizens, called
Protophanes, was victor on the same day at Olympia in the pancratium
and in the wrestling: some robbers broke into his tomb, thinking to
find something valuable there, and after them came others to see his
corpse: his ribs were not separated as is usual, but he was all bone
from his shoulders to the lowest ribs, which are called by the doctors
_false ribs_. And the Milesians have in front of their city the island
Lade, which breaks off into two little islands, one of which is called
Asterius. And they say that Asterius was buried here, and that he
was the son of Anax, and Anax was the son of Earth: his corpse is
two cubits, no less. The following circumstance also appears to me
wonderful. In Upper Lydia there is a small town called the Gates of
Temenus. Some bones were discovered here, when a piece of cliff broke
off in a storm, in shape like those of a man, but on account of their
size no one would have thought them a man’s. And forthwith a rumour
spread among the populace that it was the dead body of Geryon the son
of Chrysaor, and that a man’s seat fashioned in stone on the hillside
was his seat. And they called the mountain torrent Oceanus, and said
that people ploughing often turned up horns of oxen, for the story goes
that Geryon bred most excellent oxen. But when I opposed their theory,
and proved to them that Geryon lived at Gades, and that he has no known
tomb but a tree of various forms, hereupon the Lydian Antiquarians told
the real truth, that it was the dead body of Hyllus, and that Hyllus
was the son of Earth, and gave his name to the river Hyllus. They said
also that Hercules on account of his former intercourse with Omphale
called his son Hyllus after the same river.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

At Salamis, to return to my subject, there is a temple of Artemis, and
a trophy erected for the victory which Themistocles the son of Neocles
won for the Greeks. There is also a temple to Cychreus. For when the
Athenians were fighting the naval engagement with the Persians it is
said that a dragon was seen in the Athenian fleet, and the oracle
informed the Athenians that it was the hero Cychreus. And there is an
island facing Salamis called Psyttalea, on which they say as many as
400 Persians landed: who after the defeat of Xerxes’ fleet were they
say slain by the Greeks who passed over into Psyttalea. There is not
one statue in the island which is a work of art, but there are some
rude images of Pan made anyhow.

  And as you go to Eleusis from Athens, by the way which the Athenians
call the Sacred Way, is the tomb of Anthemocritus, to whom the
Megarians acted most unscrupulously, inasmuch as they killed him though
he came as a herald, to announce to them that henceforth they were not
to cultivate the sacred land. And for this act of theirs the wrath of
the two goddesses[9] still abides, since they are the only Greeks that
the Emperor Adrian was not able to aggrandise. And next to the column
of Anthemocritus is the tomb of Molottus, who was chosen as General of
the Athenians when they crossed over into Eubœa to the aid of Plutarch.
And near this is a village called Scirus for the following reason.
When the people of Eleusis were at war with Erechtheus, a prophet
came from Dodona Scirus by name, who also built at Phalerum the old
temple of Sciradian Athene. And as he fell in battle the Eleusinians
buried him near a mountain torrent, and both the village and torrent
get their name from the hero. And near is the tomb of Cephisodorus,
who was the leader of the people, and especially opposed Philip the
son of Demetrius, the king of the Macedonians. And Cephisodorus got
as allies for the Athenians the Mysian king Attalus, and the Egyptian
king Ptolemy, and independent nations as the Ætolians, and islanders as
the Rhodians and Cretans. And as the succours from Egypt and Mysia and
Crete came for the most part too late, and as the Rhodians (fighting
by sea only) could do little harm to heavy-armed soldiers like the
Macedonians, Cephisodorus sailed for Italy with some of the Athenians,
and begged the Romans to aid them. And they sent them a force and a
general, who so reduced Philip and the Macedonians that eventually
Perseus, the son of Philip, lost his kingdom, and was carried to Italy
as a captive. This Philip was the son of Demetrius: who was the first
of the family who was king of Macedonia, after slaying Alexander the
son of Cassander, as I have before related.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

And next to the tomb of Cephisodorus are buried Heliodorus the
Aliensian, (you may see a painting of him in the large temple of
Athene): and Themistocles the son of Poliarchus, the great grandson of
the Themistocles that fought the great sea-fight against Xerxes and the
Medes. All his other descendants except Acestius I shall pass by. But
she the daughter of Xenocles, the son of Sophocles, the son of Leo,
had the good fortune to have all her ancestors torchbearers even up to
her great grandfather Leo, and in her life she saw first her brother
Sophocles a torchbearer, and after him her husband Themistocles, and
after his death her son Theophrastus. Such was the good fortune she is
said to have had.

  And as you go a little further is the grove of the hero Lacius, who
gives his name to a township. There too is the tomb of Nicocles of
Tarentum, who won the greatest fame of all harpers. There is also an
altar to Zephyrus, and a temple of Demeter and Proserpine: Athene and
Poseidon have joint honours with them. Here they say Phytalus received
Demeter into his house, and the goddess gave him in return a fig tree.
My account is confirmed by the inscription on Phytalus’ tomb.

    “Here Phytalus king-hero once received
    Holy Demeter, when she first vouchsafed
    The fruit that mortals call the fig: since when
    The race of Phytalus has deathless fame.”

  And before crossing over the river Cephisus, is the tomb of
Theodorus, one of the best tragic actors of his day. And there are two
statues near the river, Mnesimaches, and his son cutting off his hair
as a votive offering to the Cephisus. That it was an ancient custom for
all the Greeks to cut off locks of their hair to rivers one would infer
from the verses of Homer, who describes Peleus as vowing to cut off
his hair to the river Spercheus if his son Achilles returned safe from
Troy.[10]

  On the other side of the Cephisus is an ancient altar to Milichian
(_i.e._ _mild_) Zeus, where Theseus got purified after slaying the
progeny of Phytalus. He had slain other robbers, and Sinis, who was his
relation by Pittheus his maternal grandfather. And there are the tombs
here of Theodectes the son of Phaselites, and of Mnesitheus. This last
they say was a noted doctor, and dedicated several statues, and among
them one of Iacchus. And by the roadside is a small temple called the
temple of Cyamites (_Bean-man_): but I have no certain information,
whether he first sowed beans, or whether they gave the name to some
hero, because it was not lawful to ascribe the invention of beans to
Demeter. And whoever has seen the Eleusinian mysteries, or has read the
Orphic poems, knows what I mean. And of the tombs that are finest for
size and beauty are two especially, one of a Rhodian who had migrated
to Athens, the other of Pythionice, made by Harpalus a Macedonian, who
had fled from Alexander and sailed to Europe from Asia, and coming
to Athens was arrested by the Athenians, but escaped by bribing
the friends of Alexander and others, and before this had married
Pythionice, whose extraction I don’t know, but she was a courtesan both
at Athens and Corinth. He was so enamoured of her that, when she died,
he raised this monument to her, the finest of all the ancient works of
art in Greece.

  And there is a temple in which are statues of Demeter and Proserpine
and Athene and Apollo: but originally the temple was built to Apollo
alone. For they say that Cephalus the son of Deioneus went with
Amphitryon to the Teleboæ, and was the first dweller in the island
which is now called from him Cephallenia: and that he fled from Athens,
and lived for some time at Thebes, because he had murdered his wife
Procris. And in the tenth generation afterwards Chalcinus and Dætus
his descendants sailed to Delphi, and begged of the god permission to
return to Athens: and he ordered them first to sacrifice to Apollo on
the spot where they should see a trireme on land moving. And when they
got to the mountain called Pœcilus a dragon appeared eagerly running
into its hole: and here they sacrificed to Apollo, and afterwards on
their arrival at Athens the Athenians made them citizens. Next to this
is a temple of Aphrodite, and before it a handsome wall of white stone.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Now the channels called Rheti are like rivers only in their flow, for
their water is sea water. And one might suppose that they flow from
the Euripus near Chalcis underground, falling into a sea with a lower
level. These Rheti are said to be sacred to Proserpine and Demeter,
and their priests only may catch the fish in them. And they were,
as I hear, in old times the boundaries between the territory of the
Eleusinians and Athenians. And the first inhabitant on the other side
of the Rheti was Crocon, and that district is called to this day the
kingdom of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Sæsara the
daughter of Celeus. This at least is the tradition of the occupants
of the township of Scambonidæ. Crocon’s tomb indeed I could not find,
but Eumolpus’ tomb the Athenians and Eubœans both show. This Eumolpus
they say came from Thrace, and was the son of Poseidon and Chione: and
Chione was they say the daughter of Boreas and Orithyia. Homer has
not indeed given us his pedigree, but he calls him in his poem a noble
man. And in the battle between the people of Eleusis and the Athenians
Erechtheus the king of Athens was slain, and also Immaradus the son of
Eumolpus: and peace was concluded on these conditions, that the people
of Eleusis should be in all other respects Athenians, but should have
the private management of their Mysteries. And the rites of the two
goddesses, Demeter and Proserpine, were performed by the daughters of
Celeus. Pamphus and Homer alike call them by the names Diogenea, and
Pammerope, and Sæsara. But on the death of Eumolpus Ceryx the youngest
son was the only one left, who (the heralds say) was not the son of
Eumolpus at all, but the son of Hermes by Aglaurus the daughter of
Cecrops.

  There is also a hero-chapel to Hippothoon, from whom a tribe gets its
name, and near it one to Zarex, who is said to have learnt music of
Apollo. But my own idea is that Zarex was a stranger, a Lacedæmonian
who had come into Attica, and that the city Zarex in Laconia by the
sea was called after him. But if the hero Zarex was a native of
Attica, I know nothing about him. And the river Cephisus flows near
the Eleusinian territory with greater speed than before: and here
is a place called Erineus, where Pluto they say descended, when he
carried off Proserpine. On the banks of this river Theseus slew the
robber Polypemon, who was surnamed Procrustes. And the Eleusinians
have a temple to Triptolemus, and to Propylæan Artemis, and to Father
Poseidon, and a well called Callichorus, where the Eleusinian women
first danced and sang songs to the goddess. And the Rharian plain
was the first sown and the first that produced crops according to
tradition, and this is the reason why it is the custom to use barley
from it to make cakes for the sacrifices. Here is shown Triptolemus’
threshing-floor and altar. But what is inside the sacred wall I am
forbidden by a dream to divulge, for those who are uninitiated, as
they are forbidden sight of them, so also clearly may not hear of the
mysteries. And the hero Eleusis, from whom the city gets its name, was
according to some the son of Hermes and Daira the daughter of Oceanus,
others make him the son of Ogygus. For the ancients, when they had no
data for their pedigrees, invented fictitious ones, and especially in
the pedigrees of heroes.

  And as you turn from Eleusis to Bœotia the boundary of Attica is
the Platæan district. That was the old boundary between the Athenians
and the people of Eleutheræ. But when the people of Eleutheræ became
Athenians then Mount Cithæron in Bœotia became the boundary. And the
people of Eleutheræ became Athenians not by compulsion, but from hatred
to the Thebans and a liking for the Athenian form of government. In
this plain too is a temple of Dionysus, and a statue of the god was
removed thence to Athens long ago: the one at Eleutheræ now is an
imitation of it. And at some distance is a small grotto, and near it a
spring of cold water. And it is said that Antiope gave birth to twins
and left them in this grotto, and a shepherd finding them near the
spring gave them their first bath in it, having stript them of their
swaddling clothes. And there was still in my day remains of a wall and
buildings at Eleutheræ. This makes it clear that it was a town built a
little above the plain towards Mount Cithæron.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

And another road leads from Eleusis to Megara: as you go along this
road is a well called the Well of Flowers. Pamphus records that it
was at this well that Demeter sat in the guise of an old woman after
the rape of Proserpine: and that she was taken thence as an old woman
of the country by the daughters of Celeus to their mother, and that
Metanira entrusted her with the education of her son. And not far
from the well is the temple of Metanira, and next to it the tombs of
those that fell at Thebes. For Creon, who was at that time the ruler
at Thebes (being Regent for Laodamas the son of Eteocles), would not
allow their relations to bury the dead: and Adrastus having supplicated
Theseus, and a battle having been fought between the Athenians and
Bœotians, when Theseus was the victor, he conveyed the dead bodies
to Eleusis and there buried them. But the Thebans say that they
surrendered the dead bodies of their own free will, and did not fight
on this question. And next to the tombs of the Argives is the monument
of Alope, who they say was the mother of Hippothoon by Poseidon,
and was in consequence put to death by her father Cercyon. Now this
Cercyon is said in other respects to have been harsh to strangers, and
especially to those who would not contend with him in wrestling: and
this place was called even in my day Cercyon’s wrestling ground, at a
little distance from the tomb of Alope. And Cercyon is said to have
killed all that wrestled with him but Theseus. But Theseus wrestled
against him cunningly throw for throw and beat him: for he was the
first who elevated wrestling into a science, and afterwards established
training schools for wrestling: for before the time of Theseus only
size and strength were made use of in wrestling.

  Such in my opinion are the most noteworthy among Athenian traditions
or sights. And in my account I have selected out of a mass of material
that only which was important enough to be considered history.

  Next to Eleusis is the district called Megaris: it too belonged
originally to the Athenians, having been bequeathed to Pandion by (its)
king Pylas. Proofs of what I assert are the tomb of Pandion in that
district, and the fact that Nisus, though he conceded the kingdom of
Attica to Ægeus the head of the family, yet himself was selected to
be king of Megara and the whole district up to Corinth: and even now
the Megarians have a dockyard called Nisæa after him. And afterwards,
when Codrus was king, the Peloponnesians marched against Athens: and
not having any brilliant success there they went home again, but took
Megara from the Athenians, and gave it to the Corinthians and others
of their allies that wished to dwell in it. Thus the Megarians changed
their customs and dialect and became Dorians. And they say the city
got its name in the days of Car, the son of Phoroneus, who was king in
this district: in his day they say first temples were built to Demeter
among them, and the inhabitants called them Halls.[11] This is at
any rate the tradition of the Megarians. But the Bœotians say that
Megareus the son of Poseidon lived at Onchestus, and went with an army
of Bœotians to aid Nisus in his war against Minos, and that he fell in
the battle, and got buried there, and the city which had been formerly
called Nisa, got its name Megara from him. And years afterwards, in the
12th generation from Car, the son of Phoroneus, the Megarians say Lelex
came from Egypt and became king, and during his reign the Megarians
were called Leleges. And he had a son Cleson, and a grandson Pylas,
and a great-grandson Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion, and
afterwards, (Sciron having a controversy with Nisus the son of Pandion
about the sovereignty), Æacus was arbitrator, and gave his decision
that the kingdom was to belong to Nisus and his descendants, but the
command of the army was to devolve upon Sciron. And Megareus the son of
Poseidon, having married Iphinoe the daughter of Nisus, succeeded Nisus
they say in the kingdom. But of the Cretan war, and the capture of the
city in the days of King Nisus, they pretend to know nothing.

CHAPTER XL.

There is in the city a conduit erected by Theagenes, of whom I
mentioned before that he married his daughter to Cylon an Athenian.
This Theagenes when he was king erected this conduit, well worth seeing
for its size and beauty and the number of its pillars. And the water
that flows into is called after the Sithnidian Nymphs, who, according
to the Megarian tradition, are natives, and one of them bare a son
to Zeus, whose name was Megarus, and who escaped Deucalion’s flood
by getting to the top of Mount Gerania (_Cranemountain_), which was
not the original name of the mountain, but was so called because he
followed in his swimming the flight of some cranes by their cry. And
not far from this conduit is an ancient temple, and there are some
statues in it of Roman Emperors, and an image of Artemis in brass
by the name of Saviour. The story goes that some men in the army of
Mardonius who had overrun Megaris wished to return to Thebes to join
Mardonius, but by the contrivance of Artemis wandered about all night,
and lost their way, and got into the mountainous part of the country,
and, endeavouring to ascertain if the enemy’s army was about, shot some
arrows, and the rock shot at returned a groan, and they shot again and
again furiously. And at last their arrows were expended in shooting
at their supposed foes. And when day dawned, and the Megarians really
did attack them, (well armed against men badly armed and now _minus_
ammunition), they slew most of them. And this is why they put up an
image to Artemis the Saviour. Here too are images of the so-called 12
gods, the production of Praxiteles. He also made an Artemis of the
Strongylii. And next, as you enter the sacred enclosure of Zeus called
the Olympieum, there is a temple well worth seeing: the statue of Zeus
is not finished in consequence of the war between the Peloponnesians
and the Athenians, in which the Athenians every year by land and by
sea injured the Megarians both publicly and privately, ravaging their
territory, and bringing them individually to the greatest poverty.
And the head of this statue of Zeus is of ivory and gold, but the
other parts are of clay and earthenware: and they say it was made by
Theocosmus a native, assisted by Phidias. And above the head of Zeus
are the Seasons and the Fates: it is plain to all that Fate is his
servant, and that he orders the Seasons as is meet. In the back part of
the temple there are some wooden figures only half finished: Theocosmus
intended to finish them when he had adorned the statue of Zeus with
ivory and gold. And in the temple there is the brazen ram of a trireme,
which was they say taken at Salamis, in the sea fight against the
Athenians. The Athenians do not deny that there was for some time a
defection on the part of Salamis to the Megarians, but Solon they say
by his elegiac verses stirred the Athenians up, and they fought for
it, and eventually retook it. But the Megarians say that some of their
exiles, called Doryclei, mixed themselves among the inhabitants and
betrayed Salamis to the Athenians. And next to the enclosure of Zeus,
as you ascend the Acropolis still called the Carian from Car the son
of Phoroneus, is the temple of Nyctelian Dionysus, and the temple of
Aphrodite the Procuress, and the Oracle of Night, and a roofless
temple of dusty Zeus. And statues of Æsculapius and Hygiea, both the
work of Bryaxis. Here too is the sacred Hall of Demeter: which they say
was erected by Car when he was king.

CHAPTER XLI.

As you descend from the Acropolis in a Northerly direction, you come
to the sepulchre of Alcmene near the Olympieum. She died they say at
Megara on her journey from Argos to Thebes, and the sons of Hercules
had a dispute, some wishing to take her dead body to Argos, others to
Thebes: for the sons of Hercules by Megara were buried at Thebes, as
also Amphitryon’s sons. But Apollo at Delphi gave the oracular response
that it would be better for them to bury Alcmena at Megara. From this
place the interpreter of national Antiquities took me to a place called
Rhun (_Flow_), so called because some water flowed here from the hills
above the city, but Theagenes when he was king diverted the water
into another direction, and erected here an altar to Achelous. And at
no great distance is the monument of Hyllus the son of Hercules, who
fought in single combat with the Arcadian Echemus, the son of Aeropus.
Who this Echemus was that slew Hyllus I shall shew in another place,
but Hyllus is buried at Megara. The expedition to the Peloponnese, when
Orestes was king, might rightly be called an expedition of the sons
of Hercules. And not far from the monument of Hyllus is the temple of
Isis, and near it the temple of Apollo and Artemis. This last they say
was built by Alcathous, after he had slain the lion that was called
the lion of Mount Cithæron. This lion had they say devoured several
Megarians and among them the king’s son Euippus: whose elder brother
Timalcus had been killed by Theseus still earlier, when he went
with Castor and Pollux to the siege of Aphidna. Megareus therefore
promised his daughter in marriage, and the succession to the kingdom,
to whoever should kill the lion of Mount Cithæron. So Alcathous (the
son of Pelops) attacked the beast and slew him, and, when he became
king built this temple, dedicating it to Huntress Artemis and Hunter
Apollo. This at any rate is the local tradition. But though I don’t
want to contradict the Megarians, I cannot find myself in agreement
with them entirely, for though I quite admit that the lion of Mount
Cithæron was killed by Alcathous, yet who ever recorded that Timalcus
the son of Megareus went to Aphidna with Castor and Pollux? And how (if
he had gone there) could he have been thought to have been killed by
Theseus, seeing that Alcman in his Ode to Castor and Pollux, recording
how they took Athens, and carried away captive the mother of Theseus,
yet says that Theseus was away? Pindar also gives a very similar
account, and says that Theseus wished to be connected by marriage with
Castor and Pollux, till he went away to help Pirithous in his ambitious
attempt to wed Proserpine. But whoever drew up the genealogy plainly
knew the simplicity of the Megarians, since Theseus was the descendant
of Pelops. But indeed the Megarians purposely hide the real state of
things, not wishing to own that their city was captured when Nisus was
king, and that Megareus who succeeded to the kingdom was the son in law
of Nisus, and that Alcathous was the son in law of Megareus. But it is
certain that it was not till after the death of Nisus, and a revolution
at Megara, that Alcathous came there from Elis. And this is my proof.
He built up the wall anew, when the whole of the old wall had been
demolished by the Cretans. Let this suffice for Alcathous and the lion,
whether he slew the lion on Mount Cithæron or somewhere else, before he
erected the temple to Huntress Artemis and Hunter Apollo.

  As you descend from this temple is the hero-chapel of Pandion, who,
as I have already shewn, was buried at what is called the rock of
Athene the Diver. He has also divine honours paid to him at Megara.
And near the hero-chapel of Pandion is the monument of Hippolyta. This
is the Megarian tradition about her. When the Amazons, on account of
Antiope, made an expedition against the Athenians, they were beaten
by Theseus, and most of them (it so happened) fell in battle, but
Hippolyta (the sister of Antiope), who was at that time leader of the
Amazons, fled to Megara with the remnant of them, and there, having
been unsuccessful with her army, and dejected at the present state
of things, and still more despondent about getting safe home again to
Themiscyra, died of grief and was buried. And the device on her tomb
is an Amazon’s shield. And not far distant is the tomb of Tereus, who
married Procne the daughter of Pandion. Tereus was king (according to
the Megarian tradition) of Pagæ in Megaris, but in my opinion (and
there are still extant proofs of what I state) he was king of Daulis
N.W. of Chæronea: for most of what is now called Hellas was inhabited
in old time by barbarians. And his subjects would no longer obey
Tereus after his vile conduct to Philomela, and after the murder of
Itys by Procne and Philomela. And he committed suicide at Megara, and
they forthwith piled up a tomb for him, and offer sacrifices to him
annually, using pebbles in the sacrifice instead of barley. And they
say the hoopoe was first seen here. And Procne and Philomela went to
Athens, and lamenting what they had suffered and done melted away in
tears: and the tradition that they were changed into a nightingale
and swallow is, I fancy, simply that these birds have a sorrowful and
melancholy note.

CHAPTER XLII.

There is also another citadel at Megara that gets its name from
Alcathous. As one goes up to it, there is on the right hand a monument
of Megareus, who started from Onchestus to aid the Megarians in the
Cretan War. There is also shown an altar of the gods called Prodromi:
and they say that Alcathous first sacrificed to them when he was
commencing to build his wall. And near this altar is a stone, on which
they say Apollo put his harp down, while he assisted Alcathous in
building the wall. And the following fact proves that the Megarians
were numbered among the Athenians: Peribœa the daughter of Alcathous
was certainly sent by him to Crete with Theseus in connection with the
tribute. And Apollo, as the Megarians say, assisted him in building the
wall, and laid his harp down on the stone: and if one chances to hit
it with a pebble, it sounds like a harp being played. This inspired
great wonder in me, but not so much as the Colossus in Egypt. At
Thebes in Egypt, when you cross the Nile, at a place called the Pipes
(_Syringes_), there is a seated statue that has a musical sound, most
people call it Memnon: for he they say went from Ethiopia to Egypt and
even to Susa. But the Thebans say it was a statue not of Memnon, but
Phamenophes a Theban, and I have heard people say it was Sesostris.
This statue Cambyses cut in two: and now the head to the middle of
the body lies on the ground, but the lower part remains in a sitting
posture, and every morning at sunrise resounds with melody, and the
sound it most resembles is that of a harp or lyre with a chord broken.

  And the Megarians have a council chamber, which was once as they say
the tomb of Timalcus, who, as I said a little time back, was killed
by Theseus. And on the hill where the citadel stands is a temple of
Athene, and a brazen statue of the goddess, except the hands and the
toes, which as well as the face are of ivory. And there is another
temple here of Athene called Victory, and another of her as Aiantis.
As regards the latter, all mention of it is passed over by the
interpreters of curiosities at Megara, but I will write my own ideas.
Telamon the son of Æacus married Peribœa the daughter of Alcathous. I
imagine then that Aias, having succeeded to the kingdom of Alcathous,
made this statue of Athene Aiantis.

  The old temple of Apollo was made of brick: but afterwards the
Emperor Adrian built it of white stone. The statues called Apollo
Pythius and Apollo Decataphorus are very like Egyptian statues, but the
one they call Archegetes is like Æginetan handiwork. And all alike are
made of ebony. I heard a Cyprian, a cunning herbalist, say that the
ebony has neither leaves nor fruit, and that it is never seen exposed
to the sun, but its roots are underground, and the Ethiopians dig them
up, and there are men among them who know how to find it. There is
also a temple of Law-giving Demeter. And as you go down from thence
is the tomb of Callipolis the son of Alcathous. Alcathous had also an
elder son called Ischepolis, whom his father sent to assist Meleager in
Ætolia against the Calydonian boar. And when he was killed Callipolis
heard the news first in this place: and he ran to the citadel, where
his father was sacrificing to Apollo, and threw down the wood from the
altar. And Alcathous, not having yet heard the news about Ischepolis,
was vexed with Callipolis for his irreverence, and in his wrath killed
him instantaneously by striking him on the head with one of the pieces
of wood he had thrown down from the altar.

  On the road to the Prytaneum there is a hero-chapel of Ino, and
a cornice of stone round it. Some olive-trees also grow there. The
Megarians are the only Greeks that say that the dead body of Ino was
cast on the shore of Megaris, and that Cleso and Tauropolis, the
daughters of Cleso and granddaughters of Lelex, found it and buried
it. And they say that Ino was called by them first Leucothea, and they
sacrifice to her every year.

CHAPTER XLIII.

They also lay claim to the possession of a mortuary-chapel of
Iphigenia, for she too they say died at Megara. But I have heard a
different account of Iphigenia from the Arcadians, and I know that
Hesiod in his Catalogue of Women describes Iphigenia as not dying, but
being changed into Hecate by the will of Artemis. And Herodotus[12]
wrote not dissimilarly to this, that the Tauric people in Scythia after
shipwreck sacrifice to a virgin, who is they say Iphigenia the daughter
of Agamemnon. Adrastus also has divine honours among the Megarians:
he too they say died among them (when he was leading the army back
after the capture of Thebes), of old age and sorrow for the death of
Ægialeus. And Agamemnon erected an altar to Artemis at Megara, when he
went to Calchas, a native of the place, to persuade him to join the
expedition to Ilium. And in the Prytaneum they say Euippus the son of
Megareus was buried, and also Ischepolis the son of Alcathous. And
there is a rock near the Prytaneum called _The Calling Rock_, because
Demeter (if there is any truth in the tale), when she wandered about
seeking her daughter, called out for her here. And the Megarian women
still perform a kind of mimic representation of this. And the Megarians
have tombs in the city: one they erected for those who fell fighting
against the Medes, the other, called Æsymnian, is a monument to heroes.
For when Hyperion, the last king of Megara, the son of Agamemnon, was
killed by Sandion on account of his greed and haughtiness, they chose
no longer to be under kingly government, but to have chief magistrates
annually chosen, so as to be under one another’s authority by turn.
Then it was that Æsymnus, second to none of the Megarians in fame and
influence, went to Apollo at Delphi, and asked how they were to have
prosperity. And the god among other things told them they would fare
well if they deliberated on affairs with the majority. Thinking these
words had reference to the dead, they built here a council chamber,
that the tomb of the heroes might be inside their council chamber. As
you go from thence to the hero-chapel of Alcathous, which the Megarians
now use as a Record Office, there are two tombs, one they say of
Pyrgo, the wife of Alcathous before he married Euæchma the daughter of
Megareus, the other of Iphinoe the daughter of Alcathous, who they say
died unmarried. At her tomb it is the custom of maidens before marriage
to pour libations, and sacrifice some of their long hair, as the
maidens of Delos used to do to Hecaerge and Opis. And near the entrance
to the temple of Dionysus are the tombs of Astycratea and Manto, the
daughters of Polyidus, (the son of Cœranus, the son of Abas, the son of
Melampus,) who went to Megara, and purged Alcathous for the murder of
his son Callipolis. And Polyidus also built the temple of Dionysus, and
erected a statue of the god veiled in my day except the face: that is
visible. And a Satyr is near Dionysus, the work of Praxiteles in Parian
marble. And this they call Tutelary Dionysus, and another they call
Dionysus Dasyllius (_the Vine-ripener_), and this statue they say was
erected by Euchenor the son of Cœranus the son of Polyidus. And next to
the temple of Dionysus is the shrine of Aphrodite, and a statue of the
goddess in ivory, under the title Praxis (_Action_). This is the oldest
statue in the shrine. And _Persuasion_ and another goddess whom they
call _Consolation_ are by Praxiteles: and by Scopas _Love_ and _Desire_
and _Yearning_, each statue expressing the particular shade of meaning
marked by the words. And near the shrine of Aphrodite is the temple
of Chance: this too is by Praxiteles. And in the neighbouring temple
Lysippus has made the Muses and a brazen Zeus.

  The Megarians also have the tomb of Corœbus: the verses about him I
shall relate here though they are also Argive intelligence. In the days
when Crotopus was king in Argos, his daughter Psamathe they say had
a child by Apollo, and being greatly afraid of her father knowing it
exposed the child. And some sheep dogs of Crotopus lit upon the child
and killed it, and Apollo sent upon the city _Punishment_, a monster
who took children away from their mothers (they say), till Corœbus
killed it to ingratiate himself with the Argives. And after killing it,
as a second plague came on them and vexed them sore, Corœbus of his own
accord went to Delphi, and offered to submit to the punishment of the
god for killing _Punishment_. The Pythian priestess forbade Corœbus
to return to Argos, but told him to carry a tripod from the temple,
and wherever the tripod should fall, there he was to build a temple to
Apollo and himself dwell. And the tripod slipt out of his hand and fell
(without his contrivance) on the mountain Gerania, and there he built
the village Tripodisci. And his tomb is in the market-place at Megara:
and there are some elegiac verses on it that relate to Psamathe and
Corœbus himself, and a representation on the tomb of Corœbus killing
Punishment. These statues are the oldest Greek ones in stone that I
have myself seen.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Next Corœbus is buried Orsippus, who, though the athletes according to
olden custom had girdles round their loins, ran naked at Olympia in
the race and won the prize. And they say that he afterwards as general
cut off a slice of his neighbours’ territory. But I think at Olympia
he dropped his girdle on purpose, knowing that it is easier for a
man to run naked than with a girdle on. And as you descend from the
market-place by the way called Straight, there is on the right hand a
temple of Protecting Apollo: you can find it by turning a little out
of the way. And there is in it a statue of Apollo well worth seeing,
and an Artemis and Leto, and other statues, and Leto and her sons by
Praxiteles. And there is in the ancient gymnasium, near the gates
called Nymphades, a stone in shape like a small pyramid. This they
call Apollo Carinus, and there is here a temple to Ilithyia also.
Such are the notable things the city contains. And as you descend to
the dockyard, which is still called Nisæa, is a temple of Demeter the
Wool-bearer. Several explanations are given of this title, among them
that those who first reared sheep in this country gave her that name.
And one would conjecture that the roof had fallen from the temple by
the lapse of time. There is here also a citadel called Nisæa. And as
you descend from it there is near the sea a monument of Lelex the
king, who is said to have come from Egypt, and to have been the son of
Poseidon by Libye the daughter of Epaphus. There is an island too near
Nisæa of no great size called Minoa. Here the navy of the Cretans was
moored in the war with Nisus. And the mountainous part of Megaris is on
the borders of Bœotia, and contains two towns, Pagæ and Ægosthena. As
you go to Pagæ, if you turn a little off from the regular road, there
is shewn the rock which has arrows fixed in it everywhere, into which
the Medes once shot in the night. At Pagæ too well worth seeing is a
brazen statue of Artemis under the title of _Saviour_, in size and
shape like the statues of the goddess at Megara. There is also here
a hero-chapel of Ægialeus the son of Adrastus. He, when the Argives
marched against Thebes the second time, was killed in the first battle
at Glisas, and his relations carried him to Pagæ in Megaris, and buried
him there, and the hero-chapel is still called after his name. And at
Ægosthena is a temple of Melampus the son of Amythaon, and a man of
no great size is carved on a pillar. And they sacrifice to Melampus
and have a festival to him every year. But they say that he has no
prophetic powers either in dreams or in any other way. And I also heard
at Erenea a village of Megaris, that Autonoe the daughter of Cadmus,
excessively grieving at the death of Actæon, and the circumstances
of it which tradition records, and the general misfortunes of her
father’s house, migrated there from Thebes: and her tomb is in that
village.

  And as you go from Megara to Corinth there are several tombs, and
among them that of the Samian flute-player Telephanes. And they say
that this tomb was erected by Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip the
son of Amyntas. And there is a monument of Car the son of Phoroneus,
originally only a mound of earth, but afterwards in consequence of the
oracle it was beautified with a shell-like stone. And the Megarians
are the only Greeks who possess this peculiar kind of stone, and many
things in their city are made of it. It is very white, and softer than
other stone, and seashells are everywhere in it. Such is this kind of
stone. And the road, called the Scironian road after Sciron, is so
called because Sciron, when he was commander in chief of the Megarians,
first made it a road for travellers according to tradition. And the
Emperor Adrian made it so wide and convenient that two chariots could
drive abreast.

  Now there are traditions about the rocks which project in the narrow
part of the road; with regard to the Molurian rock, that Ino threw
herself into the sea from it with Melicerta, the younger of her sons:
for Learchus the oldest was killed by his father. Athamas also is
said to have acted in the same way when mad, and to have exhibited
ungovernable rage to Ino and her children, thinking that the famine
which befell the Orchomenians, which also apparently caused the
death of Phrixus, was not the visitation of God, but a stepmother’s
contrivance against them all. So she to escape him threw herself and
her boy Melicerta into the sea from the Molurian rock. And the boy,
being carried it is said by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth, had
various honours paid to him under the name of Palæmon, and the Isthmian
games were celebrated in his honour. This Molurian rock they consider
sacred to Leucothea and Palæmon, but the rocks next to it they consider
accursed, because Sciron lived near them, who threw into the sea all
strangers that chanced to come there. And a tortoise used to swim about
near these rocks, so as to devour those that were thrown in: these sea
tortoises are like land tortoises, except in size and the shape of
their feet which are like those of seals. But the whirligig of time
which brought on Sciron punishment for all this, for he himself was
thrown by Theseus into the same sea. And on the top of the mountain is
a temple to Zeus called the Remover. They say that Zeus was so called
because when a great drought once happened to the Greeks, and Æacus in
obedience to the oracle prayed to Pan-Hellenian Zeus at Ægina, he took
it away and removed it. Here are also statues of Aphrodite and Apollo
and Pan. And as you go on a little further is the tomb of Eurystheus.
They say that he fled here from Attica after the battle with the
Heraclidæ, and was killed by Iolaus. As you descend this road is a
temple of Latoan Apollo, and near to it the boundaries between Megaris
and Corinth, where they say Hyllus the son of Hercules had a single
combat with the Arcadian Echemus.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] A stade was about one-eighth of a Roman mile.

[3] Odyssey, xi., 122, 123.

[4] See Plutarch’s “Life of Theseus.”

[5] Iliad, xxiii., 677-680.

[6] See Herod., iii., 64.

[7] Perhaps a reminiscence of Hom. Il. i. 423.

[8] See Verg. Ecl. 3. 106. Theocr. x. 28. And especially Ovid,
Metamorph. x. 210-219.

[9] Demeter and Proserpine.

[10] Iliad xxiii. 144-148.

[11] The Greek is _Megara_. Hence the paronomasia.

[12] Herod. iv. 99, and 103.

BOOK II.--CORINTH.

CHAPTER I.

The Corinthian territory, a part of Argolis, gets its name from
Corinthus, and that he was the son of Zeus I know of none who seriously
assert but most Corinthians, for Eumelus the son of Amphilytus of the
race called Bacchidæ, who is also said to have been a poet, says in
his History of Corinth (if indeed he is the author of it), that Ephyre
the daughter of Oceanus, dwelt first in this land, and that afterwards
Marathon the son of Epopeus, the son of Aloeus, the son of the Sun,
fled from the lawless insolence of his father, and took a colony into
the maritime parts of Attica, and when Epopeus was dead returned to the
Peloponnese, and after dividing the kingdom among his sons went back
into Attica, and from his son Sicyon Asopia got the name of Sicyonia,
and Ephyrea got called Corinth from his son Corinthus.

  Now Corinth is inhabited by none of the ancient Corinthians, but by
colonists who were sent there by the Romans. And this is owing to the
Achæan confederacy. For the Corinthians joined it, and took their part
in the war with the Romans which Critolaus, who had been appointed
commander in chief of the Achæans, brought about, having persuaded
the Achæans and most of the Greeks outside the Peloponnese to revolt
against Rome. And the Romans, after conquering all the other Greeks in
battle, took away from them their arms, and razed the fortifications of
all the fortified cities: but they destroyed Corinth under Mummius the
General of the Roman army, and they say it was rebuilt by Julius Cæsar,
who instituted the present form of government at Rome, (the Imperial).
Carthage also was rebuilt in his term of power.

  Now the place called Crommyon in the Corinthian territory is so
called from Cromus the son of Poseidon. Here they say was the haunt of
the Phæan boar, and the scene of Theseus’ legendary exploits against
Pityocamptes, (the _Pinebender_). As you go forward the famous pine was
to be seen even in my time near the seashore; and there was an altar to
Melicerta there, for it was here they say that he was conveyed by the
dolphin: and Sisyphus, finding him lying dead on the shore, buried him
at the Isthmus, and established the Isthmian games in honour of him.
Now it is at the head of the Isthmus that the robber Sinis took two
pine-trees and bent them down to the ground: and whoever he conquered
in battle he tied to these pine-trees, and let the pines go up into
the air again: and each of these pines dragged the poor fellow tied to
it, and (neither yielding but pulling with equal vigour) the victim
tied to them was torn asunder. In this way Sinis himself was killed
by Theseus. For Theseus cleared all the road from Trœzen to Athens
of evildoers, having killed those whom I mentioned before, and, at
Epidaurus the Holy, Periphetes the putative son of Hephæstus, whose
weapon in fighting was a brazen club. The Isthmus of Corinth extends
in one direction to the sea near Cenchreæ, and in the other to the
sea near Lechæum. This Isthmus makes the Peloponnese a Peninsula. And
whoever attempted to make the Peloponnese an island died before the
completion of a canal across the Isthmus. And where they began to dig
is now plainly visible, but they didn’t make much progress because
of the rock. The Peloponnese remains therefore what it was by nature
main land. And when Alexander, the son of Philip, wished to make a
canal through Mimas, the work was all but completed. But the oracle
at Delphi forbade the navvies to complete the work. So difficult is
it for man to oppose the divine ordinances. And the Corinthians are
not alone in their boasting about their country, but it seems to me
that the Athenians even earlier used tall talk in regard to Attica.
The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a controversy with the Sun about
their land, and that Briareus was the Arbitrator, awarding the Isthmus
and all in that direction to Poseidon, and giving the height above
the city to the Sun. From this time they say the Isthmus belongs to
Poseidon.

  The great sights at Corinth are the Theatre, and the Stadium of
white stone. And as you approach the temple of the god, there are
statues of the Athletes who have been conquerors in the Isthmian games
on one side, and on the other pine-trees planted in a row, mostly in
a straight line. And at the temple, which is not very large, there
stand some Tritons in brass. And there are statues in the porch two of
Poseidon, and one of Amphitrite, and a brazen Sea. And inside Herod an
Athenian placed in our time 4 horses all gold except the hoofs, which
are of ivory. And two golden Tritons are near the horses, ivory below
the waist. And Amphitrite and Poseidon are standing in a chariot, and
their son Palæmon is seated bolt upright on the dolphin’s back: and
these are made of ivory and gold. And on the middle of the base, on
which the chariot rests, is the Sea supporting the child Aphrodite
rising from it, and on each side are the so-called Nereids, who have I
know altars in other parts of Greece, and some have temples dedicated
to them as Shepherdesses, in places where Achilles is also honoured.
And at Doto among the Gabali there is a holy temple, where the peplus
is still kept, which the Greeks say Eriphyle took for her son Alcmæon.
And on the base of Poseidon’s statue are in bas relief the sons of
Tyndareus, because they are the patron saints of ships and sailors.
And the other statues are Calm and Sea, and a horse like a sea-monster
below the waist, and Ino and Bellerophon and Pegasus.

CHAPTER II.

And inside the precincts there is on the left hand a temple of Palæmon,
and some statues in it of Poseidon and Leucothea and Palæmon himself.
And there is also a crypt, approached by an underground passage,
where they say Palæmon is buried: whatever Corinthian or foreigner
commits perjury here has no chance of escaping punishment. There is
also an ancient temple called the altar of the Cyclopes, to whom they
sacrifice upon it. But the tombs of Sisyphus and Neleus, (for they say
that Neleus came to Corinth, and died there of some disease, and was
buried near the Isthmus), no one could find from the account in the
poems of Eumelus. As to Neleus they say that his tomb was not even
shewn to Nestor by Sisyphus: for it was to be unknown to all alike.
But that Sisyphus was buried at the Isthmus, and indeed the very site
of his tomb, a few Corinthians who were his contemporaries know. And
the Isthmian games did not fall into disuse when Corinth was taken by
Mummius, but as long as the city lay desolate, these games took place
at Sicyon, and when the city was rebuilt the old honour came back to
Corinth.

  The Corinthian seaports got their names from Leches and Cenchrias,
who were reputed to be the sons of Poseidon by Pirene the daughter of
Achelous: though in Hesiod’s poem _the great Eœæ_ Pirene is said to be
the daughter of Œbalus. And there is at Lechæum a temple and brazen
statue of Poseidon, and as you go to Cenchreæ from the Isthmus a temple
of Artemis, and old wooden statue of the goddess. And at Cenchreæ there
is a shrine of Aphrodite and her statue in stone, and next it, on the
breakwater near the sea, a brazen statue of Poseidon. And on the other
side of the harbour are temples of Æsculapius and Isis. And opposite
Cenchreæ is the bath of Helen: where much salt water flows into the sea
from the rock, like water just with the chill off.

  As you go up the hill to Corinth there are several tombs along the
wayside, and at the gate is buried Diogenes of Sinope, whom the Greeks
nickname the Cynic. And in front of the city is a grove of cypress
trees called Craneum. Here is a temple of Bellerophon, and a shrine
of Melænian Aphrodite, and the tomb of Lais, with a lioness carved
on it with a ram in its front paws. And there is another monument of
Lais said to exist in Thessaly: for she went to Thessaly when she
was enamoured of Hippostratus. She is said to have come originally
from Hyccara in Sicily, and to have been taken prisoner as a child by
Nicias and the Athenians, and to have been sold at Corinth, and to have
outstripped in beauty all the courtesans there, and so admired was she
by the Corinthians that even now they claim her as a Corinthian.

  The notable things in the city are partly the remains of antiquity
still to be seen there, partly works of art more recent, when Corinth
was at the height of all her glory. In the market-place, for most of
the temples are there, is Ephesian Artemis, and there are two wooden
statues of Dionysus gilt except the faces, which are painted with
red paint, one they call Lysian Dionysus, and the other Dionysus the
Reveller. The tradition about these statues I will record. Pentheus
they say, when he outraged Dionysus, among other acts of reckless
daring actually at last went to Mount Cithæron to spy the women, and
climbed up into a tree to see what they were doing: and when they
detected him, they forthwith dragged him down, and tore him limb from
limb. And afterwards, so they say at Corinth, the Pythian Priestess
told them to discover that tree and pay it divine honours. And that is
why these statues are made of that very wood. There is also a Temple
of Fortune: her statue is in a standing posture, in Parian marble. And
near it is a temple to all the gods. And near it is a conduit, and a
brazen Poseidon on it, and a dolphin under Poseidon’s feet passing the
water. And there is a brazen statue of Apollo called the Clarian, and
a statue of Aphrodite by Hermogenes of Cythera. And both the statues
of Hermes are of brass and in a standing posture, and one of them has
a shrine built for it. And there are three statues of Zeus in the open
air, one has no special title, the second is called Zeus of the Nether
World, and the third Zeus of Highest Heaven.

CHAPTER III.

And in the middle of the market-place is a statue of Athene in brass:
on the base are sculptured effigies of the Muses. And above the
market-place is a temple of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, who was
Emperor of the Romans after Cæsar, the founder of modern Corinth.

  And as you go from the market-place towards Lechæum there are
vestibules, on which are golden chariots, one with Phaethon in it (the
son of the Sun), and the other with the Sun himself in it. And at a
little distance from the vestibules on the right as you enter is a
brazen statue of Hercules. And next to it is the approach to the well
of Pirene. They say that Pirene became a well from a woman through the
tears she shed, bewailing the death of her son Cenchrias at the hands
of Artemis. And the well is beautified with white stone, and there are
cells like caves to match, from which the water trickles into that part
of the well which is in the open air, and it has a sweet taste, and
they say that Corinthian brass when hissing hot is dipped into this
water. There is also a statue of Apollo near Pirene, and some precincts
of the god. There is also a painting of Odysseus taking vengeance on
the suitors.

  And as you go straight on for Lechæum, you will see a brazen Hermes
in a sitting posture, and by it a ram, for Hermes more than any of the
gods is thought to watch over and increase flocks, as indeed Homer
has represented him in the Iliad “The son of Phorbas rich in flocks
and herds, whom Hermes loved most of the Trojans, and increased his
substance.”[13] But the tradition about Hermes and the ram in the rites
of the Great Mother (though I know it) I purposely pass over. And next
to the statue of Hermes are Poseidon and Leucothea, and Palæmon on
the dolphin’s back. And there are several baths in various parts of
Corinth, some erected at the public expense, and others by the Emperor
Adrian. And the most famous of them is near the statue of Poseidon.
It was erected by Eurycles a Spartan, who beautified it with various
stones, amongst others by the stone they dig at Croceæ in Laconia.
On the left of the entrance is a statue of Poseidon, and next to him
one of Artemis hunting. And many conduits have been built in various
parts of the city, as there is abundance of water, as well as the water
which the Emperor Adrian brought from Stymphelus: the handsomest is the
conduit by the statue of Artemis, and on it is a figure of Bellerophon,
and the water flows by the hoof of Pegasus.

  As you go from the market-place towards Sicyon, there is visible on
the right of the road a temple and brazen statue of Apollo, and at a
little distance a well called the well of Glauce: for she threw herself
into it, thinking the water would be an antidote against the poison of
Medea. Above this well is what is called the Odeum. And near it is the
tomb of the sons of Medea, whose names were Mermerus and Pheres, who
are said to have been stoned by the Corinthians because of the gifts
which they took Glauce. But because their death was violent and unjust,
the children of the Corinthians wasted away in consequence, until at
the oracular response of the god yearly sacrifices were ordained for
them, and a statue of Panic erected. This statue still remains to our
day, the figure of a woman represented as feeling the greatest terror.
But since the capture of Corinth by the Romans and the decay of the
old Corinthians, the sacrifices are no longer continued by the new
settlers, nor do their children continue to shear their hair, or wear
black raiment. And Medea when she went to Athens, lived with Ægeus, but
some time after (being detected plotting against Theseus) she had to
fly from Athens also, and going to the country which was then called
Aria, gave her name to its inhabitants, so that they were called Medes
from her. And the son whom she carried off with her when she fled to
the Arians was they say her son by Ægeus, and his name was Medus. But
Hellanicus calls him Polyxenus, and says Jason was his father. And
there are poems among the Greeks called Naupactian: in which Jason
is represented as having migrated from Iolcus to Corcyra after the
death of Pelias, and Mermerus (the elder of his sons) is said to have
been torn to pieces by a lioness, as he was hunting on the mainland
opposite: but about Pheres nothing is recorded. And Cinæthon the
Lacedæmonian, who also wrote Genealogical Poems, said that Jason had
by Medea a son Medeus and a daughter Eriopis: but of any children more
he too has made no mention. But Eumœlus’ account is that the Sun gave
Asopia to Aloeus, and Ephyræa to Æetes: and Æetes went to Colchis, and
left the kingdom to Bunus the son of Hermes and Alcidamea, and after
Bunus’ death, Epopeus reigned over the Ephyræans. And when in after
days Corinthus the son of Marathon died childless, the Corinthians
sent for Medea from Iolcus to hand over the kingdom to her: and it was
through her that Jason became king of Corinth, and Medea had children,
by Jason, but whenever each was born she took it to the temple of
Hera and hid it there, for she thought that by hiding them they would
be immortal: but eventually she learned that she was wrong in this
expectation, and, being at the same time detected by Jason, he would
not forgive her though she pleaded hard for forgiveness, but sailed
away to Iolcus. Eventually Medea herself went away too, and handed over
the kingdom to Sisyphus. This is the account I have read.

CHAPTER IV.

And not far from the tomb of Mermerus and Pheres is the temple of
Athene the _Bridler_: who they say helped Bellerophon more than any of
the gods in various ways, and gave him Pegasus, after having broken
it in and bridled it herself. Her statue is of wood, but the head and
hands and toes are of white stone. That Bellerophon was not absolute
king at Corinth, but limited in his power by Prœtus and the Argives I
am positive, as every one will be who has read Homer carefully. And
when Bellerophon migrated into Lycia, the Corinthians seem just the
same to have obeyed those who were in power at Argos or Mycenæ. And
they had no separate commander-in-chief of their own in the expedition
against Troy, but took part in the expedition only as a contingent with
the men of Mycenæ; and Agamemnon’s other troops. And Sisyphus had as
sons not only Glaucus the father of Bellerophon, but also Ornytion,
and Thersander, and Almus. And Phocus was the son of Ornytion, though
nominally the son of Poseidon. And he colonized Tithorea in what is
now called Phocis, but Thoas, the younger son of Ornytion, remained
at Corinth. And Demophon was the son of Thoas, Propodas the son of
Demophon, Doridas and Hyanthidas the sons of Propodas. During the joint
reign of Doridas and Hyanthidas the Dorians led an expedition against
Corinth, under the command of Aletes the son of Hippotas, (the son
of Phylas, the son of Antiochus, the son of Hercules). Doridas and
Hyanthidas handed over the kingdom to Aletes, and were permitted to
remain at Corinth, but the Corinthian people were expelled, after being
beaten in battle by the Dorians. And Aletes himself and his descendants
reigned for five generations, down to Bacchis the son of Prumnis,
and his descendants the Bacchidæ reigned five more generations, down
to Telestes the son of Aristodemus. And Telestes was slain by Arieus
and Perantas out of hatred, and there were no longer any kings, but
Presidents elected annually from the Bacchidæ, till Cypselus the son
of Eetion drove out the Bacchidæ, and made himself king. He was the
descendant of Melas the son of Antasus. And when Melas joined the
Dorian expedition against Corinth from Gonussa beyond Sicyon, Aletes
at first according to the oracle told him to go to other Greeks, but
afterwards disregarded the oracle and took him as associate. Such is
the result of my researches about the kings of the Corinthians.

  Now the temple of Athene the _Bridler_ is near the theatre, and not
far off is a wooden statue of a naked Hercules, which they say is the
work of Dædalus. All the works of Dædalus are somewhat odd to look at,
but there is a wonderful inspiration about them. And above the theatre
is a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the Roman diction, in Greek
it would be Zeus Coryphæus. And not far from this theatre is an old
gymnasium, and a well called Lerna. And there are pillars round it, and
seats to refresh those who come in in summertime. In this gymnasium
there are shrines of the gods, one of Zeus, one of Æsculapius: and
statues of Æsculapius and Hygiea (_Health_) in white stone, and one of
Zeus in brass. As you ascend to Acro-Corinthus, (it is the top of the
hill above the city, Briareus gave it to the Sun, after litigation, and
the Sun, as the Corinthians say, let Aphrodite have it), there are two
temples of Isis, one they call the Pelagian and the other the Egyptian,
and two of Serapis, one under the name of Canobus. And next them are
altars to the Sun, and a temple of Necessity and Force, into which it
is not customary to enter. Above this is a temple of the Mother of
the Gods, and a stone pillar and seat. The temples of the Fates and
Demeter and Proserpine have statues rather dim with age. Here too is a
temple of Bunæan Hera, which Bunus the son of Hermes erected. Hence the
goddess got the title Bunæan.

CHAPTER V.

On the ascent to Acro-Corinthus there is also a temple of Aphrodite:
and statues of her in full armour, and the Sun, and Cupid with a bow.
And the fountain behind the temple is they say the gift of Asopus to
Sisyphus: for he, though he knew that Zeus had carried off Ægina the
daughter of Asopus, refused to tell him unless he would give him this
water on Acro-Corinthus. And Asopus giving this water he vouchsafed
the required information, and for his information pays the penalty
in Hades, if indeed this is credible. But I have heard people say
that this fountain is Pirene, and that the water in the city flows
down from it. This river Asopus has its rise in the neighbourhood of
Phlius, flows through the Sicyonian district, and has its outlet in the
Corinthian Gulf. And the people of Phlius say that Asopus’ daughters
were Corcyra and Ægina and Thebe: and that from Corcyra and Ægina the
islands Scheria and Œnone got their present names, and that Thebe gave
its name to Thebes the city of Cadmus. But the Thebans do not admit
this, for they say that Thebe was the daughter of the Bœotian Asopus,
and not the Asopus that has its rise at Phlius. The Phliasians and
Sicyonians say further about this river that it is foreign and not
indigenous, for Mæander they say flowing down from Celænæ through
Phrygia and Caria, and falling into the sea at Miletus, travelled to
the Peloponnese and made the river Asopus. And I remember to have
heard something of the same kind from the people of Delos of the
river Inopus, which they say came to them from the Nile. And moreover
there is a tradition that the same Nile is the river Euphrates, which
was lost in a lake and re-emerged as the Nile in the remote part of
Ethiopia. This is what I heard about the Asopus. As you turn towards
the mountains from Acro-Corinthus is the Teneatic gate, and a temple
of Ilithyia. Now Tenea is about 60 stades from Corinth. And the people
of Tenea say that they are Trojans, and were carried away captive by
the Greeks from Tenedos, and located here by Agamemnon: and accordingly
Apollo is the god they hold in highest honour.

  And as you go from Corinth along the coast in the direction of Sicyon
there is a temple, which was burnt down, not far from the city on the
left hand of the way. There have been several wars in the neighbourhood
of Corinth, and fire has consumed, as one would indeed expect, both
houses and temples outside the city walls: this was they say a temple
of Apollo, and burnt down by Pyrrhus the son of Achilles. I have also
heard another account, that the Corinthians erected this temple to
Olympian Zeus, and that it was some accidental fire that burnt it down.
And the people of Sicyon, who are near neighbours to the Corinthians,
say of their region that Ægialeus the Autochthon first dwelt there, and
that what is now called Ægialus in the Peloponnese was called after him
its king, and that he was founder of Ægialea a city in the plain: and
that the site of the temple of Apollo was the citadel. And they say
that the son of Ægialeus was Europs, and the son of Europs Telchis,
and the son of Telchis Apis. Now this Apis had grown to such magnitude
before Pelops came to Olympia, that all the land inside the Isthmus
was called after him Apian. And the son of Apis was Thelxion, and the
son of Thelxion was Ægyrus, and his son was Thurimachus, and the son
of Thurimachus was Leucippus, and Leucippus had no male children, and
only one daughter Chalcinia, who they say bore a child to Poseidon, who
was called Peratus, and was brought up by Leucippus, and on his death
succeeded to the kingdom as his heir. And the history of Plemnæus the
son of Peratus seems to me most marvellous. All his children died that
his wife bare to him directly they were born and had uttered the first
cry, till Demeter took compassion on him, and coming to Ægialea as a
stranger to Plemnæus reared his child Orthopolis. And Orthopolis had a
daughter Chrysorthe: she had a child, supposed to be Apollo’s, called
Coronus. And Coronus had Corax and a younger son Lamedon.

CHAPTER VI.

And Corax dying childless, about this time Epopeus came from Thessaly
and obtained the kingdom. In his reign first (they say) did a hostile
army ever come into their country, as they had heretofore in all
time lived in peace. And the origin of the war was this. Antiope
the daughter of Nycteus had a great reputation for beauty among the
Greeks, and there was a rumour about her that she was the daughter of
Asopus, the river that forms the boundary between Thebes and Platæa,
and not the daughter of Nycteus. I know not whether Epopeus asked her
in marriage, or carried her off with more audacious designs from the
beginning. But the Thebans came with an army, and Nycteus was wounded,
and Epopeus too (though he won the victory). Nycteus though very bad
they took back to Thebes, and, when he was on the point of death, he
gave orders that Lycus his brother should be ruler of the Thebans for
the present: for Nycteus himself was Regent for Labdacus, (the son
of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus), who was still a child, and now he
left the Regency to Lycus. He also begged Lycus to go with a larger
force to Ægialea and punish Epopeus, and even to illtreat Antiope if
he could get hold of her. And Epopeus at first offered sacrifices for
his victory and built a temple to Athene, and when it was finished
prayed that the goddess would shew by some sign if it was to her mind,
and after the prayer they say oil trickled in front of the temple.
But afterwards Epopeus chanced to die of his wound which had been
originally neglected, so Lycus had no longer any need of war, for
Lamedon (the son of Coronus) the king after Epopeus gave Antiope up.
And she, as she was being conducted to Thebes, gave birth to a child
on the road near Eleutheræ. And it is in reference to this event that
Asius the son of Amphiptolemus has written the lines, “Antiope, the
daughter of the deep-eddying river Asopus, bare Zethus and divine
Amphion, being pregnant both by Zeus, and Epopeus shepherd of his
people.”

  But Homer[14] has given them a finer pedigree, and says that they
first built Thebes, distinguishing as it seems to me the lower city
from the city built by Cadmus. And King Lamedon married a wife from
Athens, Pheno the daughter of Clytius: and afterwards, when there was
war between him and Archander and Architeles, the sons of Achæus, he
invited Sicyon from Attica to help him, and gave him his daughter
Zeuxippe in marriage, and when he became king the region got called
after him Sicyonia, and the town Sicyon instead of Ægialea. And the
Sicyonians say that Sicyon was not the son of Marathon the son of
Epopeus, but the son of Metion the son of Erechtheus. And Asius agrees
with them. But Hesiod has represented Sicyon as the son of Erechtheus,
and Ibycus says he was the son of Pelops. However Sicyon had a daughter
Chthonophyle, who is said to have had a son Polybus by Hermes: and
afterwards Phlias the son of Dionysus married her, and she had a son
Androdamas. And Polybus gave his daughter Lysianassa to Talaus, the son
of Bias, the king of the Argives: and when Adrastus fled from Argos he
went to Polybus at Sicyon, and after Polybus’ death he obtained the
chief power at Sicyon. But when Adrastus was restored to Argos, then
Ianiscus the descendant of Clytius, the father in law of Lamedon, came
from Attica and became king, and on his death Phæstus, who was reputed
to be one of the sons of Hercules. And Phæstus having migrated to
Crete in accordance with an oracle, Zeuxippus, the son of Apollo and
the nymph Syllis, is said to have become king. And after the death of
Zeuxippus Agamemnon led an army against Sicyon and its king Hippolytus,
the son of Rhopalus, the son of Phæstus. And Hippolytus fearing the
invading army agreed to be subject to Agamemnon and Mycenæ. And this
Hippolytus had a son Lacestades. And Phalces, the son of Temenus,
having seized Sicyon by night in conjunction with the Dorians, did no
harm to Lacestades (as being himself also a descendant of Hercules),
but shared the royal power with him.

CHAPTER VII.

And the Sicyonians became Dorians after this, and a part of Argolis.
And their city, built by Ægialeus in the plain, Demetrius the son of
Antigonus razed to the ground, and built the present city on the site
of what was in former times the citadel. And the reason of the low
fortunes of the Sicyonians one could not find out by investigation, but
one would have to be content with what is said by Homer about Zeus,[15]

    “Who hath brought down the pride of many cities.”

And when they were in a far from favourable condition an earthquake
came on them, and made the city almost bare of men, and robbed them of
many works of art. This earthquake also injured the cities of Caria and
Lycia, and the island of Rhodes suffered especially, insomuch that the
oracle of the Sibyl about Rhodes was fulfilled.

  And as you go from Corinth towards Sicyon you come to the tomb of
Messenian Lycus, whoever this Lycus was. For I find no Messenian Lycus
that practised in the pentathlum, or carried off the prize at Olympia.
This tomb is a mound of earth, and the Sicyonians mostly bury in the
following manner. The body they deposit in the ground, and over it a
stone slab with pillars on the top, on which are figures, generally
like the eagles in the temples. But they write no epitaph, but simply
the name of the deceased, not even his parentage, and bid the dead
farewell. And next to the tomb of Lycus, when you have crossed over the
Asopus, is on the right hand the temple of Olympian Zeus, and a little
further on, on the left side of the road, is the tomb of Eupolis the
Athenian Comedian. Further on in the direction of the city is the tomb
of Xenodice, who died in childbirth: it is unlike the tombs in this
part of the country, and has a painting, which is very fine. A little
further is the tomb of the Sicyonians, who died at Pellene, and Dyme in
Achaia, and at Megalopolis and Sellasia, whose exploits I shall relate
fully later on. And they have near the gate a well in a cave, which
oozes through the roof of the cave, so it is called the Dripping Well.

  And in the present citadel there is a temple to Fortune Dwelling on
the Heights, and next it one to the Dioscuri. Both these and the statue
of Fortune are of wood. And in the theatre built under the citadel the
person represented on the stage-curtain is, they say, Aratus the son
of Clinias. And next to the theatre is a temple of Dionysus: the god
is fashioned in gold and ivory, and near him some Bacchantes in white
stone. These women they say are sacred to Dionysus, and full of Bacchic
fury. And the Sicyonians have other statues in a secret place, which
one night in every year they bring to the temple of Dionysus from the
place called Ornament Room, and they bring them with lighted torches
and national Hymns. The leader of the procession is called Baccheus,
this functionary was appointed by Androdamas the son of Phlias, and
the next in the procession is called Lysius, whom the Theban Phanes
brought from Thebes at the bidding of the Pythian Priestess. And Phanes
came to Sicyon, when Aristomachus the son of Cleodæus, mistaking the
oracle, lost thereby his return to the Peloponnese. And as you go from
the temple of Dionysus to the market-place there is a shrine of Artemis
Limnæa on the right hand. And that the roof has fallen in is clear to
the spectator. But as to the statue of the goddess--for there is none
now--the people of Sicyon do not say whether it was carried away to
some other place, or how it was destroyed (if destroyed).

  And as you enter the market-place is a temple of Persuasion, also
without a statue. Persuasion is worshipped by them on the following
ground. Apollo and Artemis after slaying Pytho went to Ægialea to
purify themselves. But being seized with some panic fear in the place
which they now call Fear, they turned aside to Crete to Carmanor, and
a pestilence came upon the people at Ægialea, and they were ordered by
the seers to propitiate Apollo and Artemis. And they sent 7 lads and
7 maidens to the river Sythas to supplicate Apollo and Artemis, and
persuaded by them these deities went to what was then the citadel, and
the place they first reached was the temple of Persuasion. A Pageant
of all this goes on to this day. On the Festival of Apollo the lads
go to the river Sythas, and, after bringing Apollo and Artemis to the
temple of Persuasion, take them back again to the temple of Apollo. And
that temple is in the middle of the present market-place, and they say
it was originally built by Prœtus, because his daughters got cured of
madness here. They say also that Meleager hung up in this temple the
spear with which he killed the Calydonian boar: here too (they say) are
deposited the flutes of Marsyas: for after his awful death the river
Marsyas carried them to Mæander, and they turned up again at the Asopus
and were landed at Sicyon, and given to Apollo by a shepherd who found
them. Of these votive offerings there is no vestige: for they were
burnt with the temple. And the temple and statue were re-erected in my
time by Pythocles.

CHAPTER VIII.

The sacred enclosure near the temple of Persuasion, consecrated to
the Roman emperors, was formerly the house of Cleon the king. For
Clisthenes the son of Aristonymus, the son of Myro, was king of the
Sicyonians in the lower part of the city, but Cleon in what is now the
city (_i.e._ the upper part). In front of this house is a hero-chapel
to Aratus, who did the greatest exploits of all the Greeks in his
time: and this is what he did. After the death of Cleon there came
on those in authority such unbridled lust for power, that Euthydemus
and Timoclidas usurped the chief power. These the people afterwards
drove out, and put in their place Clinias the father of Aratus: and
not many years afterwards Abantidas got the chief power, (after the
death of Clinias), and either exiled Aratus, or Aratus retired of his
own free will. However the men of the country killed Abantidas, and
Pascas his father succeeded him, and Nicocles killed him, and reigned
in his room. Against him came Aratus with some Sicyonian refugees and
mercenaries from Argos, and slipping by some of the garrison in the
darkness (for he made his attack by night), and forcing others back,
got inside the walls: and (for by now it was day) leading his men to
the tyrant’s house, he made a fierce attack on it. And he took it by
storm with no great difficulty, and Nicocles slipt out at a back door
and fled. And Aratus granted the Sicyonians isonomy, reconciling them
to the refugees, and giving back to the refugees all their houses and
goods that had been sold, but not without full compensation to former
purchasers. And because all the Greeks were greatly afraid of the
Macedonians and Antigonus (the Regent for Philip the son of Demetrius),
he forced the Sicyonians, though they were Dorians, into the Achæan
league. And forthwith he was chosen commander in chief by the Achæans,
and he led them against the Locrians that live at Amphissa, and into
the territory of the hostile Ætolians, and ravaged it. And although
Antigonus held Corinth with a Macedonian garrison, he dismayed them by
the suddenness of his attack, and in a battle defeated and killed many
of them, and among others Persæus the head of the garrison, who had
been a disciple of Zeno (the son of Mnaseas) in philosophy. And when
Aratus had set Corinth free, then the Epidaurians and the Trœzenians
who occupy the coast of Argolis, and the Megarians beyond the Isthmus,
joined the Achæan league, and Ptolemy also formed an alliance with
them. But the Lacedæmonians and Agis (the son of Eudamidas) their king
were beforehand with them, and took Pellene by a _coup de main_, but
when Aratus and his army came up they were beaten in the engagement,
and evacuated Pellene, and returned home again on certain conditions.
And Aratus, as things had prospered so well in the Peloponnese, thought
it monstrous that the Piræus and Munychia, and moreover Salamis and
Sunium, should be allowed to continue in Macedonian hands, and, as he
did not expect to be able to take them by storm, he persuaded Diogenes,
who was Governor of these Forts, to surrender them for 150 talents, and
of this money he himself contributed one sixth part for the Athenians.
He also persuaded Aristomachus, who was king at Argos, to give a
democratical form of government to the Argives, and to join the Achæan
league. And he took Mantinea from the Lacedæmonians. But indeed all
things do not answer according to a man’s wish, since even Aratus was
obliged eventually to become the ally of the Macedonians and Antigonus.
This is how it happened.

CHAPTER IX.

Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas, and grandson of Cleonymus, when he
succeeded to the kingdom in Sparta, imitated Pausanias in desiring to
be an autocrat, and not to obey the established laws. And as he was
more impetuous than Pausanias, and brave as a lion, he quickly moulded
everything to his will by his sagacity and boldness, and took off by
poison Eurydamidas, the king of the other royal branch, while quite
a lad, and vested the power of the Ephors in his brother Epiclidas,
and having put down the power of the Senate, he established instead
of them The Great Council of Patronomi (as they were called). And
being very ambitious of greater fortunes, and even the supremacy over
Greece, he attacked the Achæans first, hoping to have them as allies if
he conquered them, and not wishing to give them the chance to hinder
his actions. And he attacked them and beat them at Dyme above Patræ,
Aratus being in this action the Achæan general, and this defeat it was
that compelled Aratus to invite the aid of Antigonus, being afraid
for the Achæans, and even for the safety of Sicyon. And Cleomenes
having violated his conditions with Antigonus, (having openly acted
against the terms of the treaty in other respects, and especially by
turning out the inhabitants of Megalopolis,) Antigonus crossed into
the Peloponnese, and in concert with the Achæans attacked Cleomenes at
Sellasia. And the Achæans were victorious, and Sellasia was enslaved,
and Lacedæmon captured. Antigonus and the Achæans then gave back to
the Lacedæmonians their old Polity: and of Leonidas’s sons, Epiclidas
was killed in battle, and Cleomenes, (who fled to Egypt and received
the greatest honours from Ptolemy), was cast into prison subsequently
for inciting the Egyptians to revolt. And he escaped out of prison,
and caused some trouble at Alexandria: but at last he was taken and
committed suicide. And the Lacedæmonians, glad to get rid of Cleomenes,
chose to submit to kingly government no longer, but from thenceforth
until now had the republican form of government. And Antigonus
continued friendly to Aratus, as he had done him many good and splendid
services. But when Philip took the government into his own hands,
because Aratus did not praise his frequent exhibition of temper to his
subjects, and sometimes even checked him in his outbursts, he murdered
him, giving him poison when he didn’t expect it. And from Ægium, for
here fate took him, they took his body to Sicyon and buried him, and
the hero-chapel Arateum is still called after him. And Philip acted in
just the same way to Euryclides and Micon, who were Athenians: for them
too, (being orators and not unpersuasive with the people), he took off
by poison. But poison was it seems destined to bring disaster to Philip
himself: for his son Demetrius was poisoned by Perseus, his youngest
brother, and so caused his father’s death by sorrow. And I have gone
out of my way to give this account, remembering the divine saying of
Hesiod, that he who plots mischief for another brings it first on his
own pate.[16]

  And next to the hero-chapel of Aratus is an altar to Poseidon
Isthmius, and rude statues of Milichian Zeus and Tutelary Artemis.
Milichian Zeus is in the shape of Pyramid, Artemis in that of a Pillar.
Here too has been built a Council Chamber, and a Porch called the
Clisthenic from its builder Clisthenes, who built it out of spoil which
he took in the war against Cirrha, as an ally of the Amphictyones.
And in the part of the market-place which is in the open air there is
a Zeus in brass, the work of Lysippus, and near it a golden Artemis.
And next is the temple of Lycian (_Wolf-god_) Apollo, in a very
dilapidated condition. When wolves used to devour the flocks so that
there was no profit in keeping sheep, Apollo pointed out a certain
place where some dry wood lay, and ordered the bark of this wood and
flesh to be laid together before the wolves. And this bark killed the
wolves immediately they tasted it. This wood is kept stored up in the
temple of the Wolf-god: but what tree it is of none of the Sicyonian
antiquaries know. And next are some brazen statues, said to be the
daughters of Prœtus, but the inscription has other women’s names. There
is also a Hercules in brass, by Sicyonian Lysippus. And near it is a
statue of Hermes of the Market.

CHAPTER X.

Not far from the market-place in the gymnasium is a Hercules in stone,
the work of Scopas. There is also elsewhere a temple of Hercules: the
precincts of which they call Pædize, and the temple is in the middle of
the precincts, and in it is an old wooden statue of Hercules by Laphaes
of Phlius. And the sacrifices they are wont to conduct as follows.
They say that Phæstus, when he went to Sicyon, found that the people
there offered victims to Hercules as a hero, whereas he thought they
ought to sacrifice to him as to a god. And now the Sicyonians sacrifice
lambs and burn their thighs on the altar, and part of the meat they
eat and part they offer as to a hero. And the first of the days of the
Feast which they keep to Hercules they call _Names_, and the second
_Hercules’ Day_.

  A road leads from here to the temple of Æsculapius. In the precincts
there is on the left hand a double building: in the outer room is a
statue of _Sleep_, and there is nothing of it remaining but the head.
And the inner room is dedicated to Carnean Apollo, and none but the
priests may enter it. In the Porch is the huge bone of a sea-monster,
and next it the statue of _Dream_, and _Sleep_, called _the Bountiful_,
lulling a lion to rest. And as you go up to the temple of Æsculapius,
on one side is a statue of Pan seated, on the other one of Artemis
erect. At the entrance is the god himself (Æsculapius) beardless, in
gold and ivory, the work of Calamis: he has his sceptre in one hand,
and in the other the fruit of the pine-tree. And they say that the god
was brought to them from Epidaurus by a pair of mules, and that he was
like a dragon, and that he was brought by Nicagora a native of Sicyon,
the mother of Agasicles, and the wife of Echetimus. There are also some
small statues fastened to the ceiling. The woman seated on the dragon
is they say Aristodama the mother of Aratus, and they consider Aratus
the son of Æsculapius. Such are the notable things to be seen in these
precincts.

  And there are other precincts there sacred to Aphrodite: and in them
first is the statue of Antiope. For they say her sons were born at
Sicyon, and this is the connection with Antiope. Next is the temple
of Aphrodite. None may enter into it but a maiden Sacristan, who must
never marry, and another maiden who performs the annual rites. This
maiden they call bath-carrier. All others alike must only look at the
goddess from the porch and worship her there. Her figure seated is the
design of Canachus a native of Sicyon, (who also designed the Didymæan
Apollo for the Milesians, and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans). It
is in gold and ivory. The goddess wears on her head a cap, and in one
hand holds a poppy, in the other an apple. And they offer in sacrifice
to her the thighs of any victims but wild boars, all other parts they
burn with juniper wood, and when they burn the thighs they burn up
together with them the leaves of pæderos; which is a plant that grows
in the precincts of the goddess’ temple in the open air, and grows in
no other land, nor in any other part of Sicyonia. And its leaves are
smaller than the leaves of the beech, but larger than those of the holm
oak, and their shape is that of the oak-leaf, partly black, partly
white like the silvery white of the poplar tree.

  And as you go hence to the gymnasium, on the right is the temple of
Pheræan Artemis: the wooden statue of the goddess was they say brought
from Pheræ. Clinias built this gymnasium, and they educate boys there
still. There is an Artemis also in white stone, carved only down to the
waist, and a Hercules in his lower parts like the square Hermæ.

CHAPTER XI.

And as you turn from thence to the gate called The Holy Gate, not far
from the gate is a shrine of Athene, which Epopeus formerly erected,
in size and beauty surpassing those of its time. But time has obscured
its fame. The god struck it with lightning: and now there remains only
the altar, for the lightning did not light on it. And in front of
the altar is the tomb of Epopeus, and near his tomb are the Gods the
Averters of Evil, to whom they sacrifice (as the Greeks generally) to
avert evil. And they say that Epopeus built the neighbouring temple to
Artemis and Apollo, and Adrastus the one next to Hera: but no statues
remain in either temple. Adrastus also built behind the temple of
Hera two altars, one to Pan, and one to the Sun God in white stone.
And as you descend to the plain is a temple of Demeter, and they say
Plemnæus built it in gratitude to the goddess for rearing his son. And
at a little distance from the temple of Hera, which Adrastus built, is
the temple of Carnean Apollo. There are only the pillars of it left,
you will find neither walls nor roof nor anything else there--nor in
the temple of Hera the _Guide_: which was built by Phalces the son
of Temenus, who said that Hera was his guide on the way to Sicyon.
And as you go from Sicyon on the straight road to Phlius, about ten
stades, and then turn off to the left, is the grove called Pyræa, and
in it a temple of Demeter Prostasia, and Proserpine. Here the men have
a festival to themselves, and give up what is called the _Nymphon_
to the women to celebrate their festival in, and there are statues
of Dionysus and Demeter and Proserpine (showing only their faces) in
the _Nymphon_. And the road to Titane is sixty stades, and because of
its narrowness it is impassable by a carriage and pair: and 20 stades
further you cross the Asopus, and see on the left a grove of holm-oaks,
and a temple of the Goddesses whom the Athenians call the Venerable,
but the Sicyonians the Eumenides. And every year they keep a feast to
them on one day, sacrificing ewes big with young, and they are wont
to pour libations of honey and milk, and to use flowers as chaplets.
They go through the same rites on the altar of the Fates in the open
air, in the grove. And as you turn back again to the road, and cross
the Asopus again, you come to a mountain-top, where the natives say
Titan first dwelt, who was the brother of the Sun, and gave the name
Titane to this place. This Titan seems to me to have been wonderfully
clever in watching the seasons of the year, as when the Sun fructified
and ripened seeds and fruit, and this was why he was considered the
Sun’s brother. And afterwards Alexanor, the son of Machaon, the son of
Æsculapius, came to Sicyon, and built a temple of Æsculapius at Titane.
A few people dwell there, but for the most part only the suppliants of
the god, and there are within the precincts some old cypress trees. But
it is not possible to learn of what wood or metal Æsculapius’ statue is
made, nor do they know who made it, though some say Alexanor himself.
The only parts of the statue that are visible are the face and fingers
and toes, for a white woollen tunic and cloak are thrown round it. And
there is a statue of Hygiea somewhat similar. You can not see it either
easily, so hidden is it by the hair of the women which they shear to
the goddess, and by the folds of a Babylonish garment. And whichever of
these any one wishes to propitiate, he is instructed to worship Hygiea.
Alexanor and Euamerion have also statues, to the former they offer
sacrifices after sunset as to a hero, but to the latter they sacrifice
as to a god. And (if my conjecture is correct) this Euamerion is called
Telesphorus (according to some oracle) by the people of Pergamum, but
by the people of Epidaurus Acesis. There is also a wooden statue of
Coronis, but not anywhere in the temple: but when bull or lamb or pig
are sacrificed to the goddess, then they take Coronis to the temple of
Athene and honour her there. Nor are they contented merely with cutting
off the thighs of the victims, but they burn all the victims whole
on the ground except birds, and these they burn on the altar. On the
gable ends are figures of Hercules, and several Victories. And in the
porch are statues of Dionysus and Hecate and Aphrodite and The Mother
of the Gods and Fortune: these are all in wood, and one of Gortynian
Æsculapius in stone. And people are afraid to approach the sacred
dragons: but if their food is put at the entrance they give no further
trouble. There is also within the precincts a statue of Granianus, a
native of Sicyon, in brass. He won two victories at Olympia in the
pentathlum, and a third in the stadium, and two in the double course,
which he ran both in armour and out of armour.

CHAPTER XII.

And at Titane there is also a temple of Athene, into which they carry
the statue of Coronis. And in it is an old wooden statue of Athene.
This too is said to have been struck by lightning. As you descend from
the hill, for the temple is built on the hill, is the altar of the
winds, on which the priest sacrifices to them one night in every year.
And he performs mysterious rites at four pits, to tame their violence,
chanting, so they say, the incantations of Medea.

  And as you go from Titane to Sicyon, and descend towards the sea,
there is on the left a temple of Hera, with neither statue nor roof.
They say Prœtus the son of Abas built it. And as you go down to what
is called the harbour of the Sicyonians, and turn to Aristonautæ, the
port of the people of Pellene, there is, a little above the road, on
the left a temple of Poseidon. And as you go on along the high road
you come to the river Helisson, and next the river Sythas, both rivers
flowing into the sea.

  Next to Sicyonia is Phliasia. Its chief town Phlius is 40 stades at
most distant from Titane, and the road to it from Sicyon is straight.
That the Phliasians have no connection with the Arcadians is plain
from the catalogue of the Arcadians in Homer’s Iliad, for they are
not included among them. And that they were Argives originally, and
became Dorians after the return of the Heraclidæ to the Peloponnese,
will appear in the course of my narrative. As I know there are many
different traditions about among the Phliasians, I shall give those
which are most generally accepted among them. The first person who
lived in this land was they say Aras an Autochthon, and he built a
city on that hill which is still in our time called the Arantine hill,
(not very far from another hill, on which the Phliasians have their
citadel and a temple of Hebe.) Here he built his city, and from him
both land and city got called of old Arantia. It was in his reign that
Asopus (said to be the son of Celusa and Poseidon) found the water of
the river which they still call Asopus from the name of the person who
found it.[17] And the sepulchre of Aras is in a place called Celeæ,
where they say also Dysaules, an Eleusinian, is buried. And Aras had a
son Aoris and a daughter Aræthyrea, who the Phliasians say were cunning
hunters and brave in war. And, Aræthyrea dying first, Aoris changed the
name of the city into Aræthyrea. Homer has made mention of it (when
recording those who went with Agamemnon to Ilium) in the line

    “They lived at Orneæ and lovely Aræthyrea.”[18]

And I think the tombs of the sons of Aras are on the Arantine hill. And
at their tombs are some remarkable pillars, and before the rites which
they celebrate to Ceres they look at these tombs, and call Aras and his
sons to the libations. As to Phlias, the third who gave his name to
the land, I cannot at all accept the Argive tradition that he was the
son of Cisus the son of Temenus, for I know that he was called the son
of Dionysus, and was said to have been one of those who sailed in the
Argo. And the lines of the Rhodian poet bear me out, “Phlias also came
with the men of Aræthyrea, where he dwelt, wealthy through his sire
Dionysus, near the springs of Asopus.” And Aræthyrea was the mother of
Phlias and not Chthonophyle, for Chthonophyle was his wife and he had
Andromedas by her.

CHAPTER XIII.

By the return of the Heraclidæ all the Peloponnese was disturbed
except Arcadia, for many of the cities had to take Dorian settlers,
and frequent changes of inhabitants took place. The following were
the changes at Phlius. Rhegnidas a Dorian (the son of Phalces the son
of Temenus) marched against it from Argos and Sicyon. And some of the
Phliasians were content with his demands, that they should remain in
their own land, that he should be their king, and that the Dorians and
he should have lands assigned to them. But Hippasus and his party stood
out for a vigorous defence, and not for yielding up to the Dorians
their numerous advantages without a fight. But as the people preferred
the opposite view, Hippasus and those who agreed with him fled to
Samos. And the great grandson of this Hippasus was Pythagoras, surnamed
the Wise: who was the son of Mnesarchus, the son of Euphron, the son of
Hippasus. This is the account the Phliasians give of their own history,
and in most particulars the Sicyonians bear them out.

  The most notable public sights are as follows. There is in the
citadel at Phlius a cypress grove, and a temple hoary from old
antiquity. The deity to whom the temple belongs is said by the most
ancient of the Phliasians to have been Ganymeda, but by later ones
Hebe: of whom Homer has made mention in the single combat between
Menelaus and Paris, saying that she was the cupbearer of the gods, and
again in the descent of Odysseus to Hades he has said that she was
the wife of Hercules. But Olen in his Hymn to Hera says that she was
reared by the Seasons, and was mother of Ares and Hebe. And among the
Phliasians this goddess has various honours and especially in regard to
slaves; for they give them entire immunity if they come as suppliants
here, and when prisoners are loosed of their fetters they hang them up
on the trees in the grove. And they keep a yearly feast which they
call _Ivy-cuttings_. But they have no statue in any secret crypt, nor
do they display one openly: and they have a sacred reason for acting
so, for on the left as you go out there is a temple of Hera with a
statue in Parian marble. And in the citadel there are some precincts
sacred to Demeter, and in them a temple and statue of Demeter and
Persephone, and also a brazen statue of Artemis, which seemed to me
ancient. And as you go down from the citadel there is on the right
a temple and beardless statue of Æsculapius. Under this temple is a
theatre. And not far from it is a temple of Demeter, and some old
statues of the goddess in a sitting posture.

  And in the market-place there is a brazen she-goat, mostly gilt.
It got honours among the Phliasians for the following reason. The
constellation which they call the She-Goat does continuous harm to
vines at its rise. And that no serious detriment might result from it,
they paid various honours to this brazen goat, and decked its statue
with gold. Here too is a monument of Aristias the son of Pratinas. The
Satyrs carved by Aristias and Pratinas are reckoned the best carving
next to that of Æschylus. In the back part of the market-place is a
house called by the Phliasians the seer’s house. Into it Amphiaraus
went (so they say) and lay all night in sleep before giving his
oracular responses: and according to their account he for some time
lived there privately and not as a seer. And since his time the
building has been shut up entirely. And not far off is what is called
_Omphalus_, the centre of all the Peloponnese, if indeed their account
is correct. Next you come to an ancient temple of Dionysus, and another
of Apollo, and another of Isis. The statue of Dionysus may be seen by
anybody, as also that of Apollo: but that of Isis may only be seen
by the priests. The following is also a tradition of the Phliasians,
that Hercules, when he returned safe from Libya with the apples of the
Hesperides, went to Phlius for some reason or other, and when he was
living there was visited by Œneus, who was a connexion by marriage.
On his arrival from Ætolia either he feasted Hercules, or Hercules
feasted him. However this may be, Hercules struck the lad Cyathus, the
cupbearer of Œneus, on the head with one of his fingers, not being
pleased with the drink he offered him: and as this lad died immediately
from the blow, the Phliasians erected a chapel to his memory. It was
built near the temple of Apollo, and has a stone statue of Cyathus in
the act of handing the cup to Hercules.

CHAPTER XIV.

Now Celeæ is about five stades from Phlius, and they sacrifice to
Demeter there every fourth year and not annually. Nor is the presiding
priest appointed for life, but a different one is chosen on each
occasion, who may marry if he chooses. In this respect they differ from
the Eleusinian mysteries, though generally speaking, as the Phliasians
themselves admit, their mysteries are an imitation of those. They
say that Dysaules the brother of Celeus came to their country and
established these rites, when he was driven from Eleusis by Ion the son
of Xuthus, who had been chosen commander in chief by the Athenians in
the war against the people of Eleusis. This statement of the Phliasians
I cannot assent to, that an Eleusinian should have been conquered in
battle and gone into exile, when before the war was fought out the
matter was submitted to arbitration, and Eumolpus remained at Eleusis.
But it is quite possible that Dysaules may have gone to Celeæ for some
other reason, and not that which the Phliasians allege. Nor indeed
had he, as it seems to me, any other relation with the Eleusinian
chiefs than as brother of Celeus, for else Homer would not have passed
him over in his Hymn to Demeter: where in his list of those who were
taught the mysteries by the goddess he ignores Dysaules. These are
his lines. “She shewed Triptolemus, and Diocles tamer of horses, and
powerful Eumolpus, and Celeus leader of the people, the due performance
of her rights and mysteries.”[19] However, according to the Phliasian
tradition, this Dysaules established the mysteries here, and also gave
the name Celeæ to the place. There is also here as I have said the
tomb of Dysaules, but subsequent to the date of the tomb of Aras: for
according to the Phliasian account Dysaules came after the days when
Aras was king. For they say Aras was a contemporary of Prometheus the
son of Iapetus, and lived three generations earlier than Pelasgus the
son of Arcas, and those who were called the Autochthons at Athens. And
they say the chariot of Pelops is attached to the roof of the temple
called the Anactorum. Such are the most important traditions of the
Phliasians.

CHAPTER XV.

On the road from Corinth to Argos you come to the small town of Cleonæ.
Some say Cleone was the daughter of Pelops, others that she was one of
the daughters of Asopus, the river that flows by Sicyon: however the
town got its name from her. There is a temple of Athene there, and a
statue of the goddess by Scyllis and Dipœnus, pupils of Dædalus. But
some say that Dædalus took a wife from Gortyns, and that Dipœnus and
Scyllis were his sons by her. At Cleonæ beside this temple is the tomb
of Eurytus and Cteatus, who had gone from Elis to be spectators of the
Isthmian games, and whom Hercules shot with arrows there, charging them
with having fought against him in the battle with Augeas.

  From Cleonæ there are two roads to Argos, one convenient for rapid
walkers and the shorter route, the other called Tretus (_Bored_), more
convenient for a carriage, though it too is narrow and has mountains on
both sides. Among these mountains is still shown the lair of the Nemean
lion, for Nemea is only about 15 stades distant.

  At Nemea is a temple well worth seeing of Nemean Zeus, only the roof
has tumbled in, and there is no longer any statue there: but there is
a cypress grove near the temple, where they say that Opheltes, placed
on the grass there by his nurse, was devoured by a dragon. The Argives
also sacrifice to Zeus at Nemea, and select the priest of Nemean
Zeus, and have a contest in running for men in armour at the winter
meeting at Nemea. Here too is the tomb of Opheltes, and round it a
wall of stones, and altars within the precincts: and there is a piled
up mound of earth as a monument to Lycurgus the father of Opheltes.
And the fountain they call Adrastea, whether for some other reason or
because Adrastus discovered it. And they say the name Nemea was given
to the place by Nemea the daughter of Asopus. And above Nemea is the
Mountain Apesas, where they say Perseus sacrificed first to Apesantian
Zeus. And as you go up to Argos by the road called Tretus you will see
on the left hand the ruins of Mycenæ. All Greeks know that Perseus
founded Mycenæ, and I shall relate the circumstances of the founding,
and why the Argives afterwards dispossessed the old inhabitants. For
in what is now called Argolis they mention no older town, and they say
that Inachus the king gave his name to the river, and sacrificed to
Hera. They also say that Phoroneus was the first mortal in this land,
and that Inachus his father was not a man but a river: and that he
and Cephisus and Asterion were the arbitrators between Poseidon and
Hera in their dispute about the land: and when they judged that it was
Hera’s, then Poseidon took away all their water. And this is the reason
why neither Inachus nor any other of these rivers mentioned have any
water except after rain. And in summer their streams are dry except at
Lerna. And Phoroneus the son of Inachus first gathered men together in
communities, who before lived scattered and solitary: so the city in
which they were first gathered together was called Phoronicum.

CHAPTER XVI.

And Argos his daughter’s son, who reigned after Phoroneus, gave Argos
his own name. And to Argos were born Pirasus and Phorbas, and to
Phorbas Triopas, and to Triopas Iasus and Agenor. Io the daughter of
Iasus went to Egypt, either as Herodotus tells the story or as the
Greeks tell the story, and Crotopus the son of Agenor had the rule
after Iasus, and the son of Crotopus was Sthenelas. And Danaus sailed
from Egypt against Gelanor the son of Sthenelas, and expelled from the
kingdom the descendants of Agenor. All the world knows the history, how
his daughters acted to their cousins, and how after his death Lynceus
had the kingdom. And his grandsons, the sons of Abas, divided the
kingdom, Acrisius remained at Argos, and Prœtus had Heræum and Midea
and Tiryns and all the maritime parts of Argolis: and there are to
this day remains of Prœtus’ palace at Tiryns. And some time afterwards
Acrisius, hearing that Perseus was alive and a mighty man of valour,
retired to Larissa by the river Peneus. And Perseus, as he wished
excessively to see his mother’s father and greet him with kind words
and deeds, went to him to Larissa. And being in the prime of life,
and rejoicing in the invention of the game of quoits, he displayed