Description of Greece

Before the mustering of the army for the Trojan war, and during the war, Mothone was called Pedasus. Later, as the people themselves say, it received a new name from the daughter of Oeneus. They say that Mothone was born of a concubine to Oeneus the son of Porthaon, when he had taken refuge with Diomede in Peloponnese after the fall of Troy. But in my view it was the rock Mothon that gave the place its name. It is this which forms their harbor. For projecting under water, it makes the entrance for ships more narrow and also serves as a breakwater against a heavy swell.

I have shown in earlier passages that, when the Nauplians in the reign of Damocratidas in Argos were expelled for their Laconian sympathies, the Lacedaemonians gave them Mothone, and that no change was made regarding them on the part of the Messenians when they returned. The Nauplians in my view were Egyptians originally, who came by sea with Danaus to the Argolid, and two generations later were settled in Nauplia by Nauplius the son of Amymone.

The Emperor Trajan granted civic freedom and autonomy to the people of Mothone. In earlier days they were the only people of Messenia on the coast to suffer a disaster like the following: Thesprotian Epirus was ruined by anarchy. For Deidameia the daughter of Pyrrhus, being without children, handed over the government to the people when she was on the point of death. She was the daughter of Pyrrhus, son of Ptolemy, son of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus.

I have told the facts relating to Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides in my account of the Athenians. Procles the Carthaginian indeed rated Alexander the son of Philip higher on account of his good fortune and for the brilliance of his achievements, but said that Pyrrhus was the better man in infantry and cavalry tactics and in the invention of stratagems of war.

When the Epirots were rid of their kings, the people threw off all control and disdained to listen to their magistrates, and the Illyrians who live on the Ionian sea above Epirus reduced them by a raid. We have yet to hear of a democracy bringing prosperity to a nation other than the Athenians; the Athenians attained to greatness by its means, for they surpassed the Greek world in native wit, and least disregarded the established laws.

Now the Illyrians, having tasted empire and being always desirous of more, built ships, and plundering others whom they fell in with, put in to the coast of Mothone and anchored as in a friendly port. Sending a messenger to the city they asked for wine to be brought to their ships. A few men came with it and they bought the wine at the price which the inhabitants asked, and themselves sold a part of their cargo.

When on the following day a larger number arrived from the town, they allowed them also to make their profit. Finally women and men came down to the ships to sell wine and trade with the barbarians. Thereupon by a bold stroke the Illyrians carried off a number of men and still more of the women. Carrying them on board ship, they set sail for the Ionian sea, having desolated the city of the Mothonaeans.

In Mothone is a temple of Athena Of the Winds, with a statue dedicated, it is said, by Diomede, who gave the goddess her name. The country being damaged by violent and unseasonable blasts, Diomede prayed to the goddess, and henceforward no disaster caused by the winds has visited their country. There is also a shrine of Artemis here and water in a well mixed with pitch, in appearance very like the iris-oil of Cyzicos. Water can assume every color and scent.

The bluest that I know from personal experience is that at Thermopylae, not all of it, but that which flows into the swimming-baths, called locally the Women's Pots. Red water, in color like blood, is found in the land of the Hebrews near the city of Joppa. The water is close to the sea, and the account which the natives give of the spring is that Perseus, after destroying the sea-monster, to which the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, washed off the blood in the spring.

I have myself seen water coming up black from springs at Astyra. Astyra opposite Lesbos is the name of the hot baths in the district called Atarneus. It was this Atarneus, which the Chians received as a reward from the Persians as a reward for surrendering the suppliant, Pactyas the Lydian. This water then has a black color; but the Romans have a white water, above the city across the river called Anio. When a man enters it, he is at first attacked with cold and shivering, but after a little time it warms him like the hottest drug.

All these springs that had something wonderful to show I have seen myself. For I pass over the less wonderful that I know, and it is no great marvel to find water that is salt and harsh. But there are two other kinds. The water in the White Plain, as it is called, in Caria, by the village with the name Dascylou Come, is warm and sweeter than milk to drink. I know that Herodotus says that a spring of bitter water flows into the river Hypanis. We can assuredly admit the truth of his statement, when in our days at Dicaearchia (Puteoli), in the land of the Tyrrhenians, a hot spring has been found, so acid that in a few years it dissolved the lead through which its water passed.

It is a journey of about a hundred stades from Mothone to the promontory of Coryphasium, on which Pylos lies. This was founded by Pylos the son of Cleson, bringing from the Megarid the Leleges who then occupied the country. But he did not enjoy it, as he was driven out by Neleus and the Pelasgians of Iolcos, on which he departed to the adjoining country and there occupied the Pylos in Elis. When Neleus became king, he raised Pylos to such renown that Homer in his epics calls it the city of Neleus.

It contains a sanctuary of Athena with the title Coryphasia, and a house called the house of Nestor, in which there is a painting of him. His tomb is inside the city; the tomb at a little distance from Pylos is said to be the tomb of Thrasymedes. There is a cave inside the town, in which it is said that the cattle belonging to Nestor and to Neleus before him were kept.

These cattle must have been of Thessalian stock, having once belonged to Iphiclus the father of Protesilaus. Neleus demanded these cattle as bride gifts for his daughter from her suitors, and it was on their account that Melampus went to Thessaly to gratify his brother Bias. He was put in bonds by the herdsmen of Iphiclus, but received them as his reward for the prophecies which he gave to Iphiclus at his request. So it seems the men of those days made it their business to amass wealth of this kind, herds of horses and cattle, if it is the case that Nestor desired to get possession of the cattle of Iphiclus and that Eurystheus, in view of the reputation of the Iberian cattle, ordered Heracles to drive off the herd of Geryones.

Eryx too, who was reigning then in Sicily, plainly had so violent a desire for the cattle from Erytheia that he wrestled with Heracles, staking his kingdom on the match against these cattle. As Homer says in the Iliad, a hundred kine were the first of the bride gifts paid by Iphidamas the son of Antenor to his bride's father. This confirms my argument that the men of those days took the greatest pleasure in cattle.

But the cattle of Neleus were pastured for the most part across the border, I think. For the country of the Pylians in general is sandy and unable to provide so much grazing. Homer testifies to this, when he mentions Nestor, always adding that he was king of sandy Pylos.

The island of Sphacteria lies in front of the harbor just as Rheneia off the anchorage at Delos. It seems that places hitherto unknown have been raised to fame by the fortunes of men. For Caphereus in Euboea is famous since the storm that here befell the Greeks with Agamemnon on their voyage from Troy. Psyttaleia by Salamis we know from the destruction of the Persians there. In like manner the Lacedaemonian reverse made Sphacteria known to all mankind. The Athenians dedicated a bronze statue of Victory also on the acropolis as a memorial of the events at Sphacteria.

When Cyparissiae is reached from Pylos, there is a spring below the city near the sea, the water of which they say gushed forth for Dionysus when he struck he ground with a thyrsus. For this reason they call the spring Dionysias. There is a shrine of Apollo in Cyparissiae and of Athena with the title Cyparissia. In the depression called Aulon there is a temple and statue of Asclepius Aulonius. Here flows the river Neda, forming the boundary between Messenia and Elis.

The Greeks who say that the Peloponnesus has five, and only five, divisions must agree that Arcadia contains both Arcadians and Eleans, that the second division belongs to the Achaeans, and the remaining three to the Dorians. Of the races dwelling in Peloponnesus the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. When the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old Aegialus, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other hand, have from the beginning to to the present time continued in possession of their own country.

The rest of Peloponnesus belongs to immigrants. The modern Corinthians are the latest inhabitants of Peloponnesus, and from my time to the time when they received their land from the Roman Emperor is two hundred and seventeen years. The Dryopians reached the Peloponnesus from Parnassus, the Dorians from Oeta.

The Eleans we know crossed over from Calydon and Aetolia generally. Their earlier history I found to be as follows. The first to rule in this land, they say, was Aethlius, who was the son of Zeus and of Protogeneia, the daughter of Deucalion, and the father of Endymion.

The Moon, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty daughters. Others with greater probability say that Endymion took a wife Asterodia—others say she was Cromia, the daughter of Itonus, the son of Amphictyon; others again, Hyperippe, the daughter of Arcas—but all agree that Endymion begat Paeon, Epeius, Aetolus, and also a daughter Eurycyda. Endymion set his sons to run a race at Olympia for the throne; Epeius won, and obtained the kingdom, and his subjects were then named Epeans for the first time.

Of his brothers they say that Aetolus remained at home, while Paeon, vexed at his defeat, went into the farthest exile possible, and that the region beyond the river Axius was named after him Paeonia. As to the death of Endymion, the people of Heracleia near Miletus do not agree with the Eleans for while the Eleans show a tomb of Endymion, the folk of Heracleia say that he retired to Mount Latmus and give him honor, there being a shrine of Endymion on Latmus.

Epeius married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, and begat a daughter Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeius the following events also occurred. Oenomaus was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia.

On the death of Oenomaus, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeius. The Eleans said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of' Hermes in Peloponnesus and to sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death of Myrtilus.

Aetolus, who came to the throne after Epeius, was made to flee from Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional homicide. For Apis, the son of Jason, from Pallantium in Arcadia, was run over and killed by the chariot of Aetolus at the games held in honor of Azan. Aetolus, son of Endymion, gave to the dwellers around the Achelous their name, when he fled to this part of the mainland. But the kingdom of the Epeans fell to Eleius, the son of Eurycyda, daughter of Endymion and, believe the tale who will, of Poseidon. It was Eleius who gave the inhabitants their present name of Eleans in place of Epeans.

Eleius had a son Augeas. Those who exaggerate his glory give a turn to the name Eleius and make Helius to be the father of Augeas. This Augeas had so many cattle and flocks of goats that actually most of his land remained untilled because of the dung of the animals. Now he persuaded Heracles to cleanse for him the land from dung, either in return for a part of Elis or possibly for some other reward.

Heracles accomplished this feat too, turning aside the stream of the Menius into the dung. But, because Heracles had accomplished his task by cunning, without toil, Augeas refused to give him his reward, and banished Phyleus, the elder of his two sons, for objecting that he was wronging a man who had been his benefactor. He made preparations himself to resist Heracles, should he attack Elis; more particularly he made friends with the sons of Actor and with Amarynceus. Amarynceus, besides being a good soldier,

had a father, Pyttius, of Thessalian descent, who came from Thessaly to Elis. To Amarynceus, therefore, Augeas also gave a share in the government of Elis; Actor and his sons had a share in the kingdom and were natives of the country. For the father of Actor was Phorbas, son of Lapithus, and his mother was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeius. Actor named after her the city of Hyrmina, which he founded in Elis.

Heracles accomplished no brilliant feat in the war with Augeas. For the sons of Actor were in the prime of courageous manhood, and always put to flight the allies under Heracles, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce, and the sons of Actor came as envoys to the meeting. Heracles set an ambush for then, at Cleonae and murdered them. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any of the other children, devoted herself to detecting him.

When she discovered him, the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleans as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive people from the Isthmian games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and no athlete of Elis is wont to compete in the Isthmian games.

There are two other accounts, differing from the one that I have given. According to one of them Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, dedicated to Zeus a golden image at Olympia. As Cypselus died before inscribing his own name on the offering, the Corinthians asked of the Eleans leave to inscribe the name of Corinth on it, but were refused. Wroth with the Eleans, they proclaimed that they must keep away from the Isthmian games. But how could the Corinthians themselves take part in the Olympic games if the Eleans against their will were shut out by the Corinthians from the Isthmian games?

The other account is this. Prolaus, a distinguished Elean, had two sons, Philanthus and Lampus, by his wife Lysippe. These two came to the Isthmian games to compete in the boys' pancratium, and one of them intended to wrestle. Before they entered the ring they were strangled or done to death in some other way by their fellow competitors. Hence the curses of Lysippe on the Eleans, should they not voluntarily keep away from the Isthmian games. But this story too proves on examination to be silly.

For Timon, a man of Elis, won victories in the pentathlum at the Greek games, and at Olympia there is even a statue of him, with an elegiac inscription giving the crowns he won and also the reason why he secured no Isthmian victory. The inscription sets forth the reason thus:—But from going to the land of Sisyphus he was hindered by a quarrelAbout the baleful death of the Molionids.

Enough of my discussion of this question. Heracles afterwards took Elis and sacked it, with an army he had raised of Argives, Thebans and Arcadians. The Eleans were aided by the men of Pisa and of Pylus in Elis. The men of Pylus were punished by Heracles, but his expedition against Pisa was stopped by an oracle from Delphi to this effectMy father cares for Pisa, but to me in the hollows of Pytho.This oracle proved the salvation of Pisa. To Phyleus Heracles gave up the land of Elis and all the rest, more out of respect for Phyleus than because he wanted to do so: he allowed him to keep the prisoners, and Augeas to escape punishment.

The women of Elis, it is said, seeing that their land had been deprived of its vigorous manhood, prayed to Athena that they might conceive at their first union with their husbands. Their prayer was answered, and they set up a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Mother. Both wives and husbands were so delighted at their union that they named the place itself, where they first met, Bady (sweet), and the river that runs thereby Bady Water, this being a word of their native dialect.

When Phyleus had returned to Dulichium after organizing the affairs of Elis, Augeas died at an advanced age, and the kingdom of Elis devolved on Agasthenes, the son of Augeas, and on Amphimachus and Thalpius. For the sons of Actor married twin sisters, the daughters of Dexamenus who was king at Olenus; Amphimachus was born to one son and Theronice, Thalpius to her sister Theraephone and Eurytus.

However, neither Amarynceus himself nor his son Diores remained common people. Incidentally this is shown by Homer in his list of the Eleans; he makes their whole fleet to consist of forty ships, half of them under the command of Amphimachus and Thalpius, and of the remaining twenty he puts ten under Diores, the son of Amarynceus, and ten under Polyxenus, the son of Agasthenes. Polyxenus came back safe from Troy and begat a son, Amphimachus. This name I think Polyxenus gave his son because of his friendship with Amphimachus, the son of Cteatus, who died at Troy.

Amphimachus begat Eleius, and it was while Eleius was king in Elis that the assembly of the Dorian army under the sons of Aristomachus took place, with a view to returning to the Peloponnesus. To their kings was delivered this oracle, that they were to choose the “one with three eyes” to lead them on their return. When they were at a loss as to the meaning of the oracle, they were met by a man driving a mule, which was blind of one eye.

Cresphontes inferred that this was the man indicated by the oracle, and so the Dorians made him one of themselves. He urged them to descend upon the Peloponnesus in ships, and not to attempt to go across the Isthmus with a land army. Such was his advice, and at the same time he led them on the voyage from Naupactus to Molycrium. In return they agreed to give him at his request the land of Elis. The man was Oxylus, son of Haemon, the son of Thoas. This was the Thoas who helped the sons of Atreus to destroy the empire of Priam, and from Thoas to Aetolus the son of Endymion are six generations.

There were ties of kindred between the Heracleidae and the kings of Aetolia; in particular the mothers of Thoas, the son of Andraemon, and of Hyllus, the son of Heracles, were sisters. It fell to the lot of Oxylus to be an outlaw from Aetolia. The story goes that as he was throwing the quoit he missed the mark and committed unintentional homicide. The man killed by the quoit, according to one account, was Thermius, the brother of Oxylus; according to another it was Alcidocus, the son of Scopius.

The following story is also told of Oxylus. He suspected that, when the sons of Aristomachus saw that the land of Elis was a goodly one, and cultivated throughout, they would be no longer willing to give it to him. He accordingly led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. Oxylus was anxious to get the kingdom of Elis without a battle, but Dius would not give way; he proposed that, instead of their fighting a pitched battle with all their forces, a single soldier should be chosen from each army to fight as its champion.

This proposal chanced to find favour with both sides, and the champions chosen were the Elean Degmenus, an archer, and Pyraechmes, a slinger, to represent the Aetolians. Pyraechmes won and Oxylus got the kingdom. He allowed the old inhabitants, the Epeans, to keep their possessions, except that he introduced among them Aetolian colonists, giving them a share in the land. He assigned privileges to Dius, and kept up after the ancient manner the honors paid to heroes, especially the worship of Augeas, to whom even at the present day hero-sacrifice is offered.

He is also said to have induced to come into the city the dwellers in the villages near the wall, and by increasing the number of the inhabitants to have made Elis larger and generally more prosperous. There also came to him an oracle from Delphi, that he should bring in as co-founder “the descendant of Pelops.” Oxylus made diligent search, and in his search he discovered Agorius, son of Damasius, son of Penthilus, son of Orestes. He brought Agorius himself from Helice in Achaia, and with him a small body of Achaeans.

The wife of Oxylus they say was called Pieria, but beyond this nothing more about her is recorded. Oxylus is said to have had two sons, Aetolus and Laias. Aetolus died before his parents, who buried him in a tomb which they caused to be made right in the gate leading to Olympia and the sanctuary of Zeus. That they buried him thus was due to an oracle forbidding the corpse to be laid either without the city or within it. Right down to our own day the gymnasiarch sacrifices to Aetolus as to a hero every year.