Description of Greece

In Ceryneia is a sanctuary of the Eumenides, which they say was established by Orestes. Whosoever enters with the desire to see the sights, if he be guilty of bloodshed, defilement or impiety, is said at once to become insane with fright, and for this reason the right to enter is not given to all and sundry. The images made of wood . . . they are not very large in size, and at the entrance to the sanctuary are statues of women, made of stone and of artistic workmanship. The natives said that the women are portraits of the former priestesses of the Eumenides.

On returning from Ceryneia to the high road, if you go along it for a short distance you may turn aside again to Bura, which is situated on a mountain to the right of the sea. It is said that the name was given to the city from a woman called Bura, who was the daughter of Ion, son of Xuthus, and of Helice. When the god wiped off Helice from the face of the earth, Bura too suffered a severe earthquake, so that not even the ancient images were left in the sanctuaries.

The only Burians to survive were those who chanced to be absent at the time, either on active service or for some other reason, and these became the second founders of Bura. There is a temple here of Demeter, one of Aphrodite and Dionysus, and a third of Eileithyia. The images are of Pentelic marble, and were made by Eucleides of Athens. There is drapery for Demeter. Isis too has a sanctuary.

On descending from Bura towards the sea you come to a river called Buraicus, and to a small Heracles in a cave. He too is surnamed Buraicus, and here one can divine by means of a tablet and dice. He who inquires of the god offers up a prayer in front of the image, and after the prayer he takes four dice, a plentiful supply of which are placed by Heracles, and throws them upon the table. For every figure made by the dice there is an explanation expressly written on the tablet.

The straight road from Helice to the Heracles is about thirty stades. Going on from the Heracles you come to the mouth of a river that descends from a mountain in Arcadia and never dries up. The river itself is called the Crathis, which is also the name of the mountain where the river has its source. From this Crathis the river too by Crotona in Italy has been named.

By the Achaean Crathis once stood Aegae, a city of the Achaeans. In course of time, it is said, it was abandoned because its people were weak. This Aegae is mentioned by Homer in Hera's speech:—They bring thee gifts up to Helice and to Aegae.Hence it is plain that Poseidon was equally honored at Helice and at Aegae.

At no great distance from the Crathis you will find a tomb on the right of the road, and on the tombstone a man standing by the side of a horse; the colors of the painting have faded. From the grave it is a journey of about thirty stades to what is called the Gaeus, a sanctuary of Earth surnamed Broad-bosomed, whose wooden image is one of the very oldest. The woman who from time to time is priestess henceforth remains chaste, and before her election must not have had intercourse with more than one man. The test applied is drinking bull's blood. Any woman who may chance not to speak the truth is immediately punished as a result of this test. If several women compete for the priesthood, lots are cast for the honor.

To the port of Aegeira, which has the same name as the city, it is seventy-two stades from the Heracles that stands on the road to Bura. The coast town of Aegeira presents nothing worth recording; from the port to the upper city is twelve stades.

Homer in his poem calls the city Hyperesia. Its present name was given it while the Ionians were still dwelling there, and the reason for the name was as follows. A hostile army of Sicyonians was about to invade their territory. As they thought themselves no match for the Sicyonians, they collected all the goats they had in the country, and gathering them together they tied torches to their horns, and when the night was far advanced they set the torches alight.

The Sicyonians, suspecting that allies were coming to the help of the Hyperesians, and that the flames came from their fires, set off home again. The Hyperesians gave their city its present name of Aegeira from the goats ( aiges), and where the most beautiful goat, which led the others, crouched, they built a sanctuary of Artemis the Huntress, believing that the trick against the Sicyonians was an inspiration of Artemis.

The name Aegeira, however, did not supersede Hyperesia at once, just as even in my time there were still some who called Oreus in Euboea by its ancient name of Hestiaea. The sights of Aegeira worth recording include a sanctuary of Zeus with a sitting image of Pentelic marble, the work of Eucleides the Athenian. In this sanctuary there also stands an image of Athena. The face, hands and feet are of ivory, the rest is of wood, with ornamentation of gilt work and of colors.

There is also a temple of Artemis, with an image of the modern style of workmanship. The priestess is a maiden, who holds office until she reaches the age to marry. There stands here too an ancient image, which the folk of Aegeira say is Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon. If they are correct, it is plain that the temple must have been built originally for Iphigeneia.

There is also a sanctuary of Apollo; the sanctuary itself, with the sculptures on the pediments, are very old; the wooden image of the god also is old, the figure being nude and of colossal size. None of the inhabitants could give the name of the artist, but anyone who has already seen the Heracles at Sicyon would be led to conjecture that the Apollo in Aegeira was also a work of the same artist, Laphaes the Phliasian.

There are in a temple standing images of Asclepius, and elsewhere images of Serapis and of Isis, these too being of Pentelic marble. They worship most devoutly the Heavenly Goddess, but human beings must not enter her sanctuary. But into the sanctuary of the goddess they surname Syrian they enter on stated days, but they must submit beforehand to certain customary purifications, especially in the matter of diet.

I remember observing at Aegeira a building in which was an image of Fortune carrying the horn of Amaltheia. By her side is a winged Love, the moral of which is that even success in love depends for mankind on fortune rather than on beauty. Now I am in general agreement with Pindar's ode, and especially with his making Fortune one of the Fates, and more powerful than her sisters.

In this building at Aegeira is also an old man in the attitude of a mourner, three women taking off their bracelets, and likewise three lads, with a man wearing a breastplate. They say that in a war of the Achaeans this last man fought more bravely than any other soldier of Aegeira, but was killed. His surviving brothers carried home the news of his death, and therefore in mourning for him his sisters are discarding their ornaments, and the natives call the father Sympathes, because even in the statue he is a piteous figure.

There is a straight road from the sanctuary of Zeus at Aegeira, passing through the mountains and steep. It is forty stades long, and leads to Phelloe, an obscure town, which was not always inhabited even when the Ionians still occupied the land. The district round Phelloe is well suited for the growth of the vine; the rocky parts are covered with oaks, the home of deer and wild boars.

You may reckon Phelloe one of the towns in Greece best supplied with flowing water. There are sanctuaries of Dionysus and of Artemis. The goddess is of bronze, and is taking an arrow from her quiver. The image of Dionysus is painted with vermilion. On going down from Aegeira to the port, and walking on again, we see on the right of the road the sanctuary of the Huntress, where they say the goat crouched.

The territory of Aegeira is bounded by that of Pellene, which is the last city of Achaia in the direction of Sicyon and the Argolid. The city got its name, according to the account of the Pellenians, from Pallas, who was, they say, one of the Titans, but the Argives think it was from Pellen, an Argive. And they say that he was the son of Phorbas, the son of Triopas.

Between Aegeira and Pellene once stood a town, subject to the Sicyonians and called Donussa, which was laid waste by the Sicyonians;it is mentioned, they say, in a verse of Homer that occurs in the list of those who accompanied Agamemnon:—And the men of Hyperesia and those of steep Donoessa.They go on to say that when Peisistratus collected the poems of Homer, which were scattered and handed down by tradition, some in one place and some in another, then either he or one of his colleagues perverted the name through ignorance.

The port of Pellene is Aristonautae. Its distance from Aegeira on the sea is one hundred and twenty stades, and to Pellene from this port is half that distance. They say that the name of Aristonautae was given to that port because it was one of the habors into which the Argonauts entered.

The city of Pellene is on a hill which rises to a sharp peak at its summit. This part then is precipitous, and therefore uninhabited, but on the lower slopes they have built their city, which is not continuous, but divided into two parts by the peak that rises up between. As you go to Pellene there is, by the roadside, an image of Hermes, who, in spite of his surname of Crafty, is ready to fulfill the prayers of men. He is of square shape and bearded, and on his head is carved a cap.

On the way to the city, close up to it, is a temple of Athena, built of local stone, but the image is of ivory and gold. They say that Pheidias made it before he made the images of Athena on the Athenian acropolis and at Plataea. The people of Pellene also say that a shrine of Athena sinks deep into the ground, that this shrine is under the pedestal of the image, and that the air from the shrine is damp, and consequently good for the ivory.

Above the temple of Athena is a grove, surrounded by a wall, of Artemis surnamed Saviour, by whom they swear their most solemn oaths. No man may enter the grove except the priests. These priests are natives, chosen chiefly because of their high birth. Opposite the grove of the Saviour is a sanctuary of Dionysus surnamed Torch. In his honor they celebrate a festival called the Feast of Torches, when they bring by night firebrands into the sanctuary, and set up bowls of wine throughout the whole city.

There is also at Pellene a sanctuary of Apollo, the Strangers' God, and the image is made of bronze. They hold in honor of Apollo games that they call Theoxenia, with money as the prizes of victory, the competitors being the natives. Near the sanctuary of Apollo is a temple of Artemis, the goddess being represented in the attitude of shooting. In the market-place is built a tank, and for bathing they use rain-water, since for drinking there are a few springs beneath the city. The place where the springs are they name Glyceiae ( Sweet Springs).

There is an old gymnasium chiefly given up to the exercises of the youths. No one may be enrolled on the register of citizens before he has been on the register of youths. Here stands a man of Pellene called Promachus, the son of Dryon, who won prizes in the pancratium, one at Olympia, three at the Isthmus and two at Nemea. The Pellenians made two statues of him, dedicating one at Olympia and one in the gymnasium; the latter is of stone, not bronze.

It is said too that when a war arose between Corinth and Pellene, Promachus killed a vast number of the enemy. It is said that he also overcame at Olympia Pulydamas of Scotusa, this being the occasion when, after his safe return home from the king of Persia, he came for the second time to compete in the Olympic games. The Thessalians, however, refuse to admit that Pulydamas was beaten; one of the pieces of evidence they bring forward is a verse about Pulydamas:—Scotoessa, nurse of unbeaten Pulydamas..

Be this as it may, the people of Pellene hold Promachus in the highest honor. But Chaeron, who carried off two prizes for wrestling at the Isthmian games and four at the Olympian, they will not even mention by name. This I believe is because he overthrew the constitution of Pellene, and received from Alexander, the son of Philip, the most invidious of all gifts, to be set up as tyrant of one's own fatherland.

Pellene has also a sanctuary of Eileithyia, which is situated in the lesser portion of the city. What is called the Poseidium in more ancient days was a township, but to-day it is uninhabited. This Poseidium is below the gymnasium, and down to the present day it has been considered sacred to Poseidon.

About sixty stades distant from Pellene is the Mysaeum, a sanctuary of the Mysian Demeter. It is said that it was founded by Mysius, a man of Argos, who according to Argive tradition gave Demeter a welcome in his home. There is a grove in the Mysaeum, containing trees of every kind, and in it rises a copious supply of water from springs. Here they also celebrate a seven days' festival in honor of Demeter.

On the third day of the festival the men withdraw from the sanctuary, and the women are left to perform on that night the ritual that custom demands. Not only men are excluded, but even male dogs. On the following day the men come to the sanctuary, and the men and the women laugh and jeer at one another in turn.

At no great distance from the Mysacum is a sanctuary of Asclepius, called Cyrus, where cures of patients are effected by the god. Here too there is a copious supply of water, and at the largest of the springs stands the image of Asclepius. Rivers come down from the mountains above Pellene, the one on the side nearest Aegeira being called Crius, after, it is said, a Titan of the same name.

There is another river called Crius, which rises in Mount Sipylus and is a tributary of the Hermus. Where the territory of Pellene borders on that of Sicyon is a Pellenian river Sythas, the last of the Achaean rivers, which flows into the Sicyonian sea.

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

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

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

The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However, in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows, and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asius the poet says of him:—The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountainsBlack earth gave up, that the race of mortals might exist.

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

But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak. Some people have followed this diet so closely since the time of Pelasgus that even the Pythian priestess, when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, uttered the following verses:—In Arcadia are many men who eat acorns,Who will prevent you; though I do not grudge it you.It is said that it was in the reign of Pelasgus that the land was called Pelasgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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