_BOHN’S CLASSICAL LIBRARY._
PAUSANIAS’ DESCRIPTION OF GREECE.
PAUSANIAS’
DESCRIPTION OF GREECE,
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
WITH NOTES AND INDEX
BY ARTHUR RICHARD SHILLETO, M.A.,
_Sometime Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge_.
VOLUME II.
“Pausanias est un homme qui ne manque ni de bon sens ni de
bonne foi, mais qui croit ou au moins voudrait croire à ses dieux.”
--Champagny.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS,
YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1886.
CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Book VII. Achaia 1
VIII. Arcadia 61
IX. Bœotia 151
X. Phocis 219
Index 299
ERRATA.
Volume I. Page 8, line 37, for “Atte” read “Attes.” As vii. 17, 20.
(Catullus’ _Attis_.)
Page 150, line 22, for “Auxesias” read “Auxesia.”
As ii. 32.
Page 165, lines 12, 17, 24, for “Philhammon”
read “Philammon.”
Page 191, line 4, for “Tamagra” read “Tanagra.”
Page 215, line 35, for “Ye now enter” read “Enter ye now.”
Page 227, line 5, for “the Little Iliad”
read “_The Little Iliad_.”
Page 289, line 18, for “the Babylonians” read “Babylon.”
Volume II. Page 61, last line, for “earth” read “Earth.”
Page 95, line 9, for “Camira” read “Camirus.”
Page 169, line 1, for “and” read “for.”
---- ---- line 2, for “other kinds of flutes”
read “other flutes.”
Page 201, line 9, for “Lacenian” read “Laconian.”
Page 264, line 10, for “Chilon” read “Chilo.” As iii. 16.
Page 268, Note, for “I iad” read “Iliad.”
PAUSANIAS.
BOOK VII.--ACHAIA.
CHAPTER I.
Now the country between Elis and Sicyonia which borders on the
Corinthian Gulf is called in our day Achaia from its inhabitants, but
in ancient times was called Ægialus and its inhabitants Ægialians,
according to the tradition of the Sicyonians from Ægialeus, who was
king of what is now Sicyonia, others say from the position of the
country which is mostly on the sea-shore.[1] After the death of Hellen
his sons chased their brother Xuthus out of Thessaly, accusing him of
having privately helped himself to their father’s money. And he fled to
Athens, and was thought worthy to marry the daughter of Erechtheus, and
he had by her two sons Achæus and Ion. After the death of Erechtheus he
was chosen to decide which of his sons should be king, and, because he
decided in favour of Cecrops the eldest, the other sons of Erechtheus
drove him out of the country: and he went to Ægialus and there lived
and died. And of his sons Achæus took an army from Ægialus and Athens
and returned to Thessaly, and took possession of the throne of his
ancestors, and Ion, while gathering together an army against the
Ægialians and their king Selinus, received messengers from Selinus
offering him his only child Helice in marriage, and adopting him as his
son and heir. And Ion was very well contented with this, and after the
death of Selinus reigned over the Ægialians, and built Helice which
he called after the name of his wife, and called the inhabitants
of Ægialus Ionians after him. This was not a change of name but an
addition, for they were called the Ionian Ægialians. And the old name
Ægialus long prevailed as the name of the country. And so Homer in his
catalogue of the forces of Agamemnon was pleased to call the country by
its old name,
“Throughout Ægialus and spacious Helice.”[2]
And at that period of the reign of Ion when the Eleusinians were at
war with the Athenians, and the Athenians invited Ion to be Commander
in Chief, death seized him in Attica, and he was buried at Potamos,
a village in Attica. And his descendants reigned after him till they
and their people were dispossessed by the Achæans, who in their turn
were driven out by the Dorians from Lacedæmon and Argos. The mutual
feuds between the Ionians and Achæans I shall relate when I have
first given the reason why, before the return of the Dorians, the
inhabitants of Lacedæmon and Argos only of all the Peloponnese were
called Achæans. Archander and Architeles, the sons of Achæus, came to
Argos from Phthiotis and became the sons in law of Danaus, Architeles
marrying Automate, and Archander Scæa. And that they were sojourners in
Argos is shewn very clearly by the name Metanastes (_stranger_) which
Archander gave his son. And it was when the sons of Achæus got powerful
in Argos and Lacedæmon that the name Achæan got attached to the whole
population. Their general name was Achæans, though the Argives were
privately called Danai. And now when they were expelled from Argos and
Lacedæmon by the Dorians, they and their king Tisamenus the son of
Orestes made the Ionians proposals to become their colonists without
war. But the Ionian Court was afraid that, if they and the Achæans were
one people, Tisamenus would be chosen as king over both nations for
his bravery and the lustre of his race. So the Ionians did not accept
the proposals of the Achæans but went to blows over it, and Tisamenus
fell in the battle, and the Achæans beat the Ionians, and besieged
them in Helice to which they had fled, but afterwards let them go upon
conditions. And the Achæans buried the body of Tisamenus at Helice,
but some time afterwards the Lacedæmonians, in accordance with an
oracle from Delphi, removed the remains to Sparta, and the tomb of
Tisamenus is now where the Lacedæmonians have their banquetings, at
the place called Phiditia. And when the Ionians migrated to Attica the
Athenians and their king, Melanthus the son of Andropompus, welcomed
them as settlers, in gratitude to Ion and his services to the Athenians
as Commander in Chief. But there is a tradition that the Athenians
suspected the Dorians, and feared that they would not keep their hands
off them, and received the Ionians therefore as settlers rather from
their formidable strength than from goodwill to them.
[1] Ægialus (αἰγιαλός) is Greek for sea-shore. In this last
view compare the names _Pomerania_, _Glamorganshire_.
[2] Iliad, ii. 575.
CHAPTER II.
And not many years afterwards Medon and Nileus, the eldest sons of
Codrus, quarrelled as to who should be king over the Athenians, and
Nileus said he would not submit to the rule of Medon, because Medon
was lame in one of his feet. But as they decided to submit the matter
to the oracle at Delphi, the Pythian Priestess assigned the kingdom to
Medon. So Nileus and the other sons of Codrus were sent on a colony,
and took with them whatever Athenians wished, and the Ionians formed
the largest part of the contingent. This was the third expedition
that had started from Greece under different kings and with different
peoples. The oldest expedition was that of Iolaus the Theban, the
nephew of Hercules, who led the Athenians and people of Thespiæ to
Sardinia. And, one generation before the Ionians sailed from Athens,
the Lacedæmonians and Minyæ who had been expelled by the Pelasgi
from Lemnos were led by Theras the Theban, the son of Autesion, to
the island henceforward called Theras after him, but formerly called
Calliste. And now thirdly the sons of Codrus were put at the head of
the Ionians, though they had no connection with them by race, being
as they were Messenians from Pylos as far as Codrus and Melanthus
were concerned, and Athenians only on their mother’s side. And the
following Greeks took part in this expedition of the Ionians, the
Thebans under Philotas, who was a descendant of Peneleus, and the
Minyæ from Orchomenus, who were kinsmen of the sons of Codrus. All the
Phocians also took part in it (except the people of Delphi), and the
Abantes from Eubœa. And to the Phocians the Athenians Philogenes and
Damon, the sons of Euctemon, gave ships to sail in, and themselves
led them to the colony. And when they had crossed over to Asia Minor,
different detachments went to different maritime towns, but Nileus and
his contingent to Miletus. The Milesians give the following account of
their early history. They say their country was for two generations
called Anactoria, during the reigns of Anax the Autochthon and Asterius
his son, and that, when Miletus put in there with an expedition of
Cretans, then the town and country changed its name to Miletus from
him. And Miletus and the force with him came from Crete fleeing from
Minos the son of Europa. And the Carians, who had settled earlier in
the neighbourhood of Miletus, admitted the Cretans to a joint share
with them. But now when the Ionians conquered the old inhabitants of
Miletus, they slew all the males except those that ran away from the
captured city, and married their wives and daughters. And the tomb of
Nileus is as you approach Didymi, not far from the gates on the left of
the road. And the temple and oracle of Apollo at Didymi are of earlier
date than the migration of the Ionians: as also is the worship of the
Ephesian Artemis. Not that Pindar in my opinion understood all about
the goddess, for he says that the Amazons who fought against Theseus
and Athens built the temple to her. Those women from Thermodon did
indeed sacrifice to the Ephesian Artemis, as having known her temple
of old, when they fled from Hercules and earlier still from Dionysus,
and sought refuge there: it was not however built by them, but by
Coresus, an Autochthon, and by Ephesus (who was they think the son of
the river Cayster, and gave his name to the city of Ephesus). And the
Leleges (who form part of Caria) and most of the Lydians inhabited the
district. And several people lived near the temple for the purpose of
supplication, and some women of the Amazonian race. And Androclus the
son of Codrus, who was appointed king of the Ionians that sailed to
Ephesus, drove the Leleges and Lydians who dwelt in the upper part of
the city out of the district; but of those who lived near the temple
no apprehensions were entertained, but they mutually gave and received
pledges with the Ionians without any hostilities. Androclus also took
Samos from the Samians, and for some time the Ephesians were masters of
Samos and the adjacent islands. And after the Samians returned to their
own possessions, Androclus assisted the people of Priene against the
Carians and, though the Greeks were victorious, fell in the battle. And
the Ephesians took up his corpse, and buried it in their own country
where the tomb is shewn to this day, on the way from the temple by the
Olympiæum to the Magnesian gates. The device on the tomb is a man in
full armour.
And the Ionians, when they inhabited Myus and Priene, drove the Carians
out from those cities. Cyaretus the son of Codrus colonized Myus, and
Priene was colonized by Thebans and Ionians mixed under Philotas, the
descendant of Peneleus, and Æpytus the son of Nileus. So Priene, which
had been ravaged by Tabalus the Persian, and afterwards by Hiero one
of its own citizens, at last became an Ionian city. But the dwellers
in Myus left their town in consequence of the following circumstance.
In the neighbourhood of Myus is a small bay: this was converted into
a marsh by the Mæander filling up the mouth of the bay with mud. And
as the water became foul and no longer sea, mosquitoes in endless
quantities bred in the marsh, till they compelled the poor people of
Myus to leave the place. And they went to Miletus and carried off with
them everything they could take and the statues of the gods: and in my
time there was at Myus only a temple of Dionysus in white marble. A
similar disaster fell upon the Atarnitæ near Pergamum.
CHAPTER III.
The Colophonians also regard the temple and oracle of Apollo at Claros
as most ancient, for, while the Carians were still in possession of the
country, they say that the first Greeks who came there were Cretans,
a large force powerful both by land and sea under Rhacius, and the
Carians remained still in possession of most of the country. But when
the Argives and Thersander the son of Polynices took Thebes, several
captives, and among others Manto were taken to Apollo at Delphi, but
Tiresias died on the road not far from Haliartus.[3] And when the
god sent them to form a colony they crossed over into Asia Minor,
and when they got to Claros the Cretans attacked them and took them
before Rhacius. And he, understanding from Manto who they were and
their errand, married Manto and made her companions fellow-settlers
with him. And Mopsus, the son of Rhacius and Manto, drove out all
the Carians altogether. And the Ionians on mutual conditions became
fellow-citizens upon equal terms with the Colophonian Greeks. And the
kingdom over the Ionians was usurped by their leaders Damasichthon and
Promethus the sons of Codrus. And Promethus afterwards slew his brother
Damasichthon and fled to Naxos, and died there, and his body was taken
home and buried by the sons of Damasichthon: his tomb is at a place
called Polytichides. And how Colophon came to be dispeopled I have
previously described in my account about Lysimachus: its inhabitants
were the only colonists at Ephesus that fought against Lysimachus and
the Macedonians. And the tombs of those from Colophon and Smyrna that
fell in the battle are on the left of the road to Claros.
Lebedus also was dispeopled by Lysimachus simply to add to the
population of Ephesus. It was a place in many respects favoured, and
especially for its very numerous and agreeable warm baths near the sea.
Originally it was inhabited by the Carians, till Andræmon, the son of
Codrus, and the Ionians drove them out. Andræmon’s tomb is on the left
of the road from Colophon, after you have crossed the river Calaon.
And Teos was colonized by the Minyæ from Orchomenus, who came with
Athamas; he is said to have been a descendant of Athamas the son of
Æolus. Here too the Carians were mixed up with the Greeks. And the
Ionians were conducted to Teos by Apœcus, the great-great-grandson of
Melanthus, who did no harm to either the Orchomenians or Teians. And
not many years afterwards came men from Attica and Bœotia, the former
under Damasus and Naoclus the sons of Codrus, the latter under the
Bœotian Geres, and both these new-comers were hospitably received by
Apœcus and the people of Teos.
The Erythræi also say that they came originally from Crete with
Erythrus (the son of Rhadamanthys) who was the founder of their city,
and when the Lycians Carians and Pamphylians occupied the city as well
as the Cretans, (the Lycians being kinsfolk of the Cretans, having
originally come from Crete when they fled from Sarpedon, and the
Carians having an ancient friendship with Minos, and the Pamphylians
also having Greek blood in their veins, for after the capture of Ilium
they wandered about with Calchas), when all those that I have mentioned
occupied Erythræ, Cleopus the son of Codrus gathered together from all
the towns in Ionia various people, whom he formed into a colony at
Erythræ.
And the people of Clazomenæ and Phocæa had no cities before the Ionians
came to Asia Minor: but when the Ionians arrived a detachment of them,
not knowing their way about the country, sent for one Parphorus a
Colophonian as their guide, and having built a city under Mount Ida
left it not long after, and returned to Ionia and built Scyppius in
Colophonia. And migrating of their own accord from Colophonia, they
occupied the territory which they now hold, and built on the mainland
the town of Clazomenæ. But afterwards from fear of the Persians they
crossed over into the island opposite. But in process of time Alexander
the son of Philip was destined to convert Clazomenæ into a peninsula,
by connecting the island with the mainland by an embankment. Most of
the inhabitants of Clazomenæ were not Ionians, but were from Cleonæ
and Phlius, and had left those cities when the Dorians returned to the
Peloponnese. And the people of Phocæa were originally from the country
under Mount Parnassus which is still to our day called Phocis, and
crossed over into Asia Minor with the Athenians Philogenes and Damon.
And they took territory not by war but on an understanding with the
people of Cyme. And as the Ionians would not receive them into the
Pan-Ionic confederacy unless they received kings from the descendants
of Codrus, they accepted from Erythræ and Teos Deœtes and Periclus and
Abartus.
[3] See Book ix. ch. 33.
CHAPTER IV.
And the cities of the Ionians in the islands were Samos near Mycale,
and Chios opposite Mimas. The Samian Asius, the son of Amphiptolemus,
has written in his poems that Phœnix had by Perimede (the daughter of
Œneus) Astypalæa and Europe, and that Poseidon had by Astypalæa a son
Ancæus, who was king over the Leleges, and married the daughter of the
river-god Mæander, her name was Samia, and their children were Perilaus
and Enudus and Samos and Alitherses and one daughter Parthenope, who
bare Lycomedes to Apollo. Such is the account of Asius in his poems.
Those who inhabited Samos at this time received the Ionian colonists
rather of necessity than goodwill. The Ionian leader was Procles the
son of Pityreus, an Epidaurian as also was a large number of his men,
they had been banished from Epidauria by Deiphontes and the Argives,
and Procles himself was a descendant of Ion the son of Xuthus. And
Androclus and the Ephesians marched against Leogorus the son of
Procles, who succeeded his father as king of Samos, and having defeated
him in battle drove the Samians out of the island, on the pretext that
they had joined the Carians in a plot against the Ionians. Of the
Samians that were thus driven out of Samos some took a colony to the
island near Thrace, which had been previously known as Dardania, but
was henceforth called Samothrace; others under Leogorus built a fort on
the mainland opposite at Anæa, and ten years afterwards crossed into
Samos, drove out the Ephesians and recovered the island.
The temple of Hera in Samos was according to the tradition of some
built by the Argonauts, who brought the statue of the goddess from
Argos. But the Samians themselves think that the goddess was born
in their island on the banks of the river Imbrasus, and under the
willow-tree that still grows in the temple of Hera. That this temple
could not have been very ancient one naturally infers from the
statue, which is by the Æginetan Smilis, the son of Euclides, who was
a contemporary of Dædalus, but has not acquired equal renown. For
Dædalus, an Athenian of the royal stock called Metionidæ, was most
remarkable of all men for his art and misfortunes. For having killed
his sister’s son, and knowing the vengeance that awaited him in his
country, he became a voluntary exile and fled to Minos and Crete, and
made works of art for Minos and his daughters, as Homer has described
in the Iliad. But being condemned for treason against Minos, and thrown
into prison with his son, he escaped from Crete and went to Inycus,
a city of Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, and caused a war between
the Sicilians and Cretans, because Cocalus would not give him up at
the request of Minos. And so much beloved was he by the daughters of
Cocalus for his art, that these ladies entered into a plot against the
life of Minos out of favour to Dædalus. And it is plain that his fame
extended over all Sicily, and most of Italy. While Smilis, except among
the Samians and at Elea, had no fame whatever out of his own country;
but he went to Samos, and there he made the statue of Hera.
About Chios Ion the Tragedian has recorded that Poseidon went to that
island when it was unoccupied, and had an intrigue there with a Nymph,
and when she was in labour some snow fell, and so Poseidon called the
boy Chios.[4] By another Nymph he had Agelus and Melas. And in process
of time Œnopion sailed to Chios from Crete with his sons Talus and
Euanthes and Melas and Salagus and Athamas. And during the reign of
Œnopion some Carians came to the island, and the Abantes from Eubœa.
And Œnopion and his sons were succeeded by Amphiclus, who came to Chios
from Histiæa in Eubœa in accordance with the oracle at Delphi. And
Hector the fourth in descent from Amphiclus, (for he too was king of
Chios), fought against the Abantes and Carians that were still in the
island, and slew some in various battles, and compelled others to leave
the island upon conditions of war. And after the Chians had finished
the war, then Hector bethought him that he and the Ionians ought to
jointly sacrifice to the welfare of the Pan-Ionic league. And Ion says
he received the present of a tripod from the community of the Ionians
for his prowess. But Ion has not told us how it was the Chians got
ranked as Ionians.
[4] The Greek for snow is _chion_. Hence the paronomasia.
CHAPTER V.
And Smyrna, which was one of the 12 cities of the Æolians, on the site
of what they now call the old city, was taken from the Æolians by the
Ionians who came from Colophon, but some time afterwards the Ionians
admitted its inhabitants to the Pan-Ionic league. But Alexander the
son of Philip built the modern Smyrna in consequence of a dream he
had. For on his return from hunting on Mount Pagus he went they say
to the temple of Nemesis, and there found a well, and a plane-tree in
front of the temple growing in the water. And they say he slept under
this plane-tree and the goddesses of Nemesis appeared to him and bade
him build a town on that site, and remove the people of Smyrna there
from the old Smyrna. And the people of Smyrna sent envoys to Claros to
consult the oracle in the present conjuncture, and the god gave the
following oracular response,
“Thrice happy yea four times happy shall those men be, who shall dwell
near Mount Pagus across the sacred Meles.”
So they willingly removed, and they worship two Nemeses instead of one,
and they say their mother was Night, but the Athenians who worship
Nemesis at Rhamnus say that she was the daughter of Oceanus.
The Ionians have a most magnificent country for the fruits of the
earth, and temples such as there are nowhere else, the finest that
of Ephesian Artemis for size and opulence, and next two to Apollo
not quite finished, one at Branchidæ in Milesia, the other at Claros
in Colophonia. Two temples in Ionia were burnt down by the Persians,
one of Hera in Samos, and one of Athene in Phocæa. They are still
wonderful though the fire has passed upon them. And you would be
delighted with the temple of Hercules at Erythræ, and with the temple
of Athene at Priene, the latter for the statue of the goddess, the
former for its great antiquity. And at Erythræ is a work of art
unlike the most ancient of Æginetan or Attic workmanship: its design
is perfect Egyptian. It is the wooden raft on which the god sailed
from Tyre in Phœnicia, why the people of Erythræ do not say. But to
prove that it came into the Ionian sea they say it was moored at the
promontory called Mid, which is on the mainland about half-way from the
harbour of Erythræ to the island of Chios. And when this raft was at
the promontory, the people of Erythræ and the Chians too had no small
trouble in trying to get it on shore. At last a native of Erythræ, who
got his living from the sea by catching fish, but had lost his eyesight
through some disease, Phormio by name, dreamed that the women of
Erythræ were to cut off their hair, and that the men making a rope out
of this hair were to drag the raft ashore. The women who were citizens
wouldn’t hear of it: but all the women who were slaves of Thracian
race, or who being free had yet to earn their own living, allowed their
hair to be cut off, and so at last the people of Erythræ got the raft
to shore. So Thracian women alone are allowed to enter the temple of
Hercules, and the rope made of hair is still kept by the people of
Erythræ. They also say that the fisherman recovered his sight, and
saw for the rest of his life. At Erythræ there is also a temple of
Athene Polias, and a huge wooden statue of the goddess seated on a
throne, in one hand a distaff in the other a globe. We conjecture it
to be by Endœus from several circumstances, especially looking at the
workmanship of the statue inside, and the Graces and Seasons in white
marble, which used to stand in the open air. The people of Smyrna also
had in my time a temple of Æsculapius between the mountain Coryphe and
the sea which is unmixed with any other water.
Ionia besides the temples and the salubrity of the air has several
other things worthy of record. Near Ephesus is the river Cenchrius,
and the fertile Mount Pion, and the well Halitæa. And in Milesia is
the well Biblis: of the love passages of Biblis they still sing. And
in Colophonia is the grove of Apollo, consisting of ash trees, and not
far from the grove the river Ales, the coldest river in Ionia. And
the people of Lebedus have baths which are both wonderful and useful
to men. The people of Teos also have baths at the promontory Macria,
some natural consisting of sea-water that bursts in at a crevice of
the rock, others built at wonderful cost. The people of Clazomenæ also
have baths. Agamemnon is honoured there. And there is a grotto called
the grotto of Pyrrhus’ mother, and they have a tradition about Pyrrhus
as a shepherd. The people of Erythræ have also a place called Chalcis,
from which the third of their tribes takes its name, where there is a
promontory extending to the sea, and some sea baths, which of all the
baths in Ionia are most beneficial to men. And the people of Smyrna
have the most beautiful river Meles and a cave near its springs, where
they say Homer wrote his Poems. The Chians also have a notable sight in
the tomb of Œnopion, about whose deeds they have several legends. The
Samians too on the way to the temple of Hera have the tomb of Rhadine
and Leontichus, which those are accustomed to visit who are melancholy
through love. The wonderful things indeed in Ionia are not far short of
those in Greece altogether.
CHAPTER VI.
After the departure of the Ionians the Achæans divided their land
and lived in their towns, which were 12 in number, and well known
throughout Greece. Dyme first near Elis, and then Olenus, and Pharæ,
and Tritea, and Rhypes, and Ægium, and Cerynea, and Bura, and Helice,
and Ægæ and Ægira, and last Pellene near Sicyonia. In these towns,
which had formerly been inhabited by the Ionians, the Achæans and
their kings dwelt. And those who had the greatest power among the
Achæans were the sons of Tisamenus, Däimenes and Sparton and Tellis and
Leontomenes. Cometes, the eldest of Tisamenus’ sons, had previously
crossed over into Asia Minor. These ruled over the Achæans as also
Damasias (the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes), the brother of
Tisamenus. Equal authority to them had Preugenes and his son Patreus
from Lacedæmon; who were allowed by the Achæans to build a city in
their territory, which was called Patræ after Patreus.
The following were the wars of the Achæans. In the expedition of
Agamemnon against Ilium, as they inhabited both Lacedæmon and Argos,
they were the largest contingent from Greece. But when Xerxes and
the Medes invaded Greece, the Achæans as far as we know did not
join Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylæ, nor did they fight under
Themistocles and the Athenians in the sea-fights off Eubœa and Salamis,
nor were they in either the Lacedæmonian or Athenian list of allies.
They were also behind at Platæa: for otherwise they would certainly
have been mentioned among the other Greeks on the basement of the
statue of Zeus at Olympia.[5] I cannot but think they stayed behind
on each of these occasions to save their country, and also after the
Trojan War they did not think it befitting that the Lacedæmonians (who
were Dorians) should lead them. As they showed long afterwards. For
when the Lacedæmonians were at war with the Athenians, the Achæans
readily entered into an alliance with the people of Patræ, and were
equally friendly with the Athenians. And they took part in the wars
that were fought afterwards by Greece, as at Chæronea against Philip
and the Macedonians. But they admit that they did not go into Thessaly
or take part in the battle of Lamia, because they had not yet recovered
from their reverse in Bœotia. And the Custos Rotulorum at Patræ says
that the wrestler Chilon was the only Achæan present at the action at
Lamia. I know also myself that the Lydian Adrastus fought privately
(and not in any concert with the Lydians) for the Greeks. This Adrastus
had a brazen effigy erected to him by the Lydians in front of the
temple of Persian Artemis, and the inscription they wrote upon it
was that he died fighting for the Greeks against Leonnatus. And the
pass at Thermopylæ that admitted the Galati was overlooked by all the
Peloponnesians as well as by the Achæans: for as the barbarians had
no ships, they thought they had nothing to fear from them, if they
strongly fortified the Isthmus of Corinth, from Lechæum on the one sea
to Cenchreæ on the other.
This was the view at that time of all the Peloponnesians. And when the
Galati crossed over into Asia Minor in ships got somewhere or other,
then the Greeks were so situated that none of them were any longer
clearly the leading state. For as to the Lacedæmonians, their reverse
at Leuctra, and the gathering of the Arcadians at Megalopolis, and the
vicinity of the Messenians on their borders, prevented their recovering
their former prosperity. And the city of the Thebans had been so laid
waste by Alexander, that not many years afterwards when they were
reduced by Cassander, they were unable to protect themselves at all.
And the Athenians had indeed the good will of all Greece for their
famous actions, but that was no security to them in their war with the
Macedonians.
[5] See Book v. ch. 23.
CHAPTER VII.
The Achæans were most powerful in the days when the Greeks were not
banded together, but each looked after their own personal interests.
For none of their towns except Pellene had any experience of tyrants
at any time. And misfortunes from wars and the plague did not so much
touch the Achæans as all the other Greeks. Accordingly what is called
the Achæan League was by common consent the design and act of the
Achæans. And this League was formed at Ægium because, next to Helice
which had been swept away by a flood, it had been the foremost town in
Achaia in former times, and was at this time the most powerful. And
of the other Greeks the Sicyonians first joined this Achæan League.
And next to the Sicyonians some of the other Peloponnesians joined
it, some immediately, some rather later: and outside the Isthmus what
brought people in was seeing that the Achæan League was becoming more
and more powerful. And the Lacedæmonians were the only Greeks that
were unfriendly to the Achæans and openly took up arms against them.
For Pellene an Achæan town was taken by Agis, the son of Eudamidas,
King of Sparta, though he was soon driven out again by Aratus and
the Sicyonians. And Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas and grandson of
Cleonymus, a king of the other family, when Aratus and the Achæans were
gathered together at Dyme against him routed them badly in battle,
though he afterwards concluded peace with the Achæans and Antigonus.
Antigonus was at this time ruler of the Macedonians, being Regent for
Philip, the son of Demetrius, who was quite a boy; he was Philip’s
uncle and also stepfather. With him and the Achæans Cleomenes made
peace, but soon violated his engagements, and reduced to slavery
Megalopolis in Arcadia. And the reverse which the Lacedæmonians met
with at Sellasia at the hands of the Achæans and Antigonus was in
consequence of Cleomenes’ violation of his word. But Cleomenes we shall
mention again when we come to Arcadia. And Philip the son of Demetrius,
when he came to age, received the rule over the Macedonians from his
stepfather Antigonus, who was glad to surrender it, and inspired great
fear in all the Greeks by closely imitating Philip the son of Amyntas,
(who was no ancestor of his, but a true despot), as in bribing people
to betray their country. And at banquets he would offer the cup of
fellowship and kindness filled not with wine but deadly poison, a thing
which Philip the son of Amyntas in my opinion never thought of, but to
Philip the son of Demetrius poisoning appeared a very trifling crime.
And three towns he turned into garrison-towns as _points d’appui_
against Greece, and in his insolence and haughty disregard of the
Greeks he called these towns the keys of Greece. One was Corinth in the
Peloponnese, the citadel of which he strongly fortified, and for Eubœa
and Bœotia and Phocis he had Chalcis near the Euripus, and for Thessaly
and Ætolia he garrisoned Magnesia under Mount Pelion. And by perpetual
raids and plundering incursions he harassed the Athenians and Ætolians
especially. I have mentioned before in my account of Attica the Greeks
or barbarians who assisted the Athenians against Philip, and how in
consequence of the weakness of their allies the Athenians were obliged
to rely on an alliance with Rome. The Romans had sent some soldiers not
long before nominally to assist the Ætolians against Philip, but really
to spy out what the Macedonians were aiming at. But now they sent an
army under the command of Otilius, that was his best known name, for
the Romans are not called like the Greeks merely after their father’s
name, but have 3 names at least and sometimes more. This Otilius had
orders from the Romans to protect the Athenians and Ætolians against
Philip. Otilius in all other respects obeyed his orders, but did one
thing that the Romans were not pleased at. For he captured and rased
to the ground Hestiæa (a town in Eubœa) and Anticyra in Phocis, places
which had submitted to Philip simply from necessity. This was I think
the reason why the Senate when they heard of it superseded him by
Flaminius.
CHAPTER VIII.
Flaminius on his arrival immediately defeated the Macedonian garrison
at Eretria and plundered the town, and next marched to Corinth which
was occupied by Philip’s garrison, and sat down to a regular siege,
and sent to the Achæans urging them to come to Corinth with an army,
so as to be reckoned the allies of the Romans, and in friendship to
the Greeks generally. But the Achæans took it ill that Flaminius and
still earlier Otilius had handled so savagely old Greek cities, that
had committed no offence against Rome, and were under the Macedonians
against their wish. They foresaw also that instead of Philip and
the Macedonians they would merely have the Romans as dictators in
Greece. But after many speeches from different points of view had been
delivered in the council, at last the party friendly to the Romans
prevailed, and the Achæans joined Flaminius in the siege of Corinth.
And the Corinthians, being thus freed from the Macedonian yoke, at once
joined the Achæan League, which indeed they had formerly joined, when
Aratus and the Sicyonians drove out the garrison from the citadel of
Corinth and slew Persæus, who had been put in command of the garrison
by Antigonus. And from that time forward the Achæans were called the
allies of the Romans, and were devoted to them at all times, and
followed them into Macedonia against Philip, and joined them in an
expedition against the Ætolians, and fought on their side against
Antiochus and the Syrians.
In fighting against the Macedonians and Syrians the Achæans were
animated only by friendship to the Romans: but in fighting against the
Ætolians they were satisfying a long-standing grudge. And when the
power at Sparta of Nabis, a man of the most unrelenting cruelty, had
been overthrown, the Lacedæmonians became their own masters again, and
as time went on the Achæans got them into their League, and were very
severe with them, and rased to the ground the fortifications of Sparta,
which had been formerly run up hastily at the time of the invasion of
Demetrius and afterwards of Pyrrhus and the Epirotes, but during the
power of Nabis had been very strongly fortified. And not only did the
Achæans rase the walls of Sparta, but they prevented their youths from
training as Lycurgus had ordained, and made them train in the Achæan
way. I shall enter into all this in more detail in my account about
Arcadia. And the Lacedæmonians, being sorely vexed with these harassing
decrees of the Achæans, threw themselves into the arms of Metellus
and his colleagues, who had come on an embassy from Rome, not to try
and stir up war against Philip and the Macedonians, for a peace had
been previously solemnly concluded between Philip and the Romans, but
to try the charges made against Philip either by the Thessalians or
the Epirotes. Philip himself indeed and the Macedonian supremacy had
actually received a fatal blow from the Romans. For fighting against
Flaminius and the Romans on the range of hills called Cynoscephalæ
Philip got the worst of it, and having put forth all his strength in
the battle got so badly beaten that he lost the greater part of his
army, and was obliged by the Roman terms to remove his garrisons from
all the Greek towns which he had seized and reduced during the war.
The peace indeed with the Romans which he obtained sounded specious,
but was only procured by various entreaties and at great expenditure
of money. The Sibyl had indeed foretold not without the god the power
which the Macedonians would attain to in the days of Philip the son of
Amyntas, and how all this would crumble away in the days of another
Philip. These are the very words of her oracle--
“Ye Macedonians, that boast in the Argeadæ as your kings, to you
Philip as ruler shall be both a blessing and a curse. The first Philip
shall make you ruler over cities and people, the last shall lose you
all your honour, conquered by men both from the West and East.”
The Romans that overthrew the Macedonian Empire lived in the West of
Europe, and Attalus and the Mysian force that cooperated with them may
be said to have been Eastern Nations.
CHAPTER IX.
But now Metellus and his colleagues resolved not to neglect the
quarrels of the Lacedæmonians and Achæans, so they convened before
their council-board the most prominent Achæans, that they might
publicly advise them to treat the Lacedæmonians in a kindlier spirit.
And the Achæans returned answer that they would give no hearing to
them or anyone else, who should approach them on any subject whatever,
except they were armed with a decree from the Roman Senate. And
Metellus and his colleagues, thinking they were treated by the Achæans
with rather too much hauteur, on their return to Rome told the Senate
many things against the Achæans which were not all true. And further
charges still were brought against the Achæans by Areus and Alcibiades,
who were held in great repute at Sparta, but who did not act well
to the Achæans: for when they were exiled by Nabis the Achæans had
kindly received them, and after the death of Nabis had restored them
to Sparta contrary to the wish of the Lacedæmonian people. But now
being admitted before the Roman Senate they inveighed against the
Achæans with the greatest zeal. And the Achæans on their return from
Rome sentenced them to death in their Council. And the Roman Senate
sent Appius and some others to put the differences between the Achæans
and Lacedæmonians on a just footing. But this embassy was not likely
to please the Achæans, inasmuch as in Appius’ suite were Areus and
Alcibiades, whom the Achæans detested at this time. And when they
came into the council chamber they endeavoured by their words to
stir up rather the animosity of the Achæans than to win them over by
persuasion. Lycortas of Megalopolis, a man in merit behind none of the
Arcadians, and who had friendly relations with Philopœmen upon whom
he relied, put forward in his speech the just claims of the Achæans,
and at the same time covertly blamed the Romans. But Appius and his
suite jeered at Lycortas’ speech, and passed a vote that Areus and
Alcibiades had committed no crime against the Achæans, and allowed the
Lacedæmonians to send envoys to Rome, thus contravening the previous
convention between the Romans and Achæans. For it had been publicly
agreed that envoys of the Achæans might go to the Roman Senate, but
those states which were in the Achæan League were forbidden to send
envoys privately. And when the Achæans sent a counter-embassy to that
of the Lacedæmonians, and the speeches on both sides were heard in the
Senate, then the Romans despatched Appius and all his former suite
as plenipotentiaries between the Lacedæmonians and Achæans. And they
restored to Sparta those that had been exiled by the Achæans, and
they remitted the fines of those who had absconded before judgment,
and had been condemned in their absence. And they did not remove
the Lacedæmonians from the Achæan League, but they ordered that
_foreign_[6] courts were to try capital cases, but all other cases they
could themselves try, or submit them to the Achæan League. And the
Spartans again built walls all round their city from the foundation.
And those Lacedæmonians who were restored from exile meditated all
sorts of contrivances against the Achæans, hoping to injure them most
in the following way. The Messenians who were concerned in the death
of Philopœmen, and who were banished it was thought on that account by
the Achæans, these and other exiles of the Achæans they persuaded to
go and take their case to Rome. And they went with them and intrigued
for their return from exile. And as Appius greatly favoured the
Lacedæmonians, and on all occasions went against the Achæans, whatever
the Messenian or Achæan exiles wished was sure to come off without any
difficulty, and letters were sent by the Senate to Athens and Ætolia,
ordering them to restore the Messenians and Achæans to their rights.
This seemed the unkindest cut of all to the Achæans, who upon various
occasions were treated with great injustice by the Romans, and who
saw that all their past services went for nothing, for after having
fought against Philip and the Ætolians and Antiochus simply to oblige
the Romans, they were neglected for exiles whose lives were far from
pure. Still they thought they had better submit. Such was the state of
affairs up to this point.
[6] Meaning _Roman_ I take it.
CHAPTER X.
But the most impious of all crimes, the betrayal of one’s country and
fellow citizens for gain, was destined to bring about the destruction
of the Achæans, a crime that has ever troubled Greece. For in the
days of Darius (the son of Hystaspes) king of the Persians the Ionian
affairs were ruined by all the Samian captains but eleven treacherously
surrendering their ships. And after the subjugation of the Ionians the
Medes enslaved Eretria; when those held in highest repute in Eretria
played the traitor, as Philagras, the son of Cyneus, and Euphorbus,
the son of Alcimachus. And when Xerxes went on his expedition to
Greece, Thessaly was betrayed by the Aleuadæ, and Thebes was betrayed
by Attaginus and Timegenidas, its foremost men. And during the
Peloponnesian war Xenias, a native of Elis, endeavoured to betray Elis
to the Lacedæmonians and Agis. And those who were called Lysander’s
friends never ceased the attempt to betray their countries to Lysander.
And in the reign of Philip, the son of Amyntas, one will find that
Lacedæmon was not the only one of the Greek cities that were betrayed:
the cities of Greece were more ruined through treason than they had
been formerly by the plague. But Alexander the son of Philip had very
little success indeed by treason. And after the reverse to the Greeks
at Lamia Antipater, wishing to cross over with all despatch to the
war in Asia Minor, was content to patch up a peace speedily, as it
mattered nothing to him whether he left Athens or indeed all Greece
free. But Demades and other traitors at Athens persuaded Antipater
not to act friendly to the Greeks, and, by frightening the commonalty
of the Athenians, they were the means of the introduction into Athens
and most other towns of the Macedonian garrisons. What confirms my
account is that the Athenians after the reverse in Bœotia did not
become subject to Philip, though 1,000 were killed in the action, and
2,000 taken prisoners after: but at Lamia, although only 200 fell,
they became slaves of the Macedonians. Thus at no time were wanting to
Greece people afflicted with this itch for treason. And the Achæans at
this time were made subject to the Romans entirely through the Achæan
Callicrates. But the beginning of their troubles was the overthrow of
Perseus and the Macedonian Empire by the Romans.
Perseus the son of Philip was originally at peace with the Romans
according to the terms of agreement between them and his father Philip,
but he violated these conditions when he led an army against Abrupolis,
the king of the Sapæans, (who are mentioned by Archilochus in one of
his Iambic verses) and dispossessed them, though they were allies of
the Romans. And Perseus and the Macedonians having been beaten in
war on account of this outrage upon the Sapæans, ten Roman Senators
were sent to settle affairs in Macedonia according to the interests
of the Romans. And when they came to Greece Callicrates insinuated
himself among them, letting slip no occasion of flattering them either
in word or deed. And one of them, who was by no means remarkable for
justice, was so won over by Callicrates that he was persuaded by
him to enter the Achæan League. And he went to one of their general
meetings, and said that when Perseus was at war with the Romans the
most influential Achæans had furnished him with money, and assisted
him in other respects. He bade the Achæans therefore pass a sentence
of death against these men: and he said if they would do so, then he
would give them their names. This seemed an altogether unfair way of
putting it, and those present at the general meeting said that, if any
of the Achæans had acted with Perseus, their names must be mentioned
first, for it was not fair to condemn them before. And when the Roman
was thus confuted, he was so confident as to affirm that all the
Achæan Generals were implicated in the charge, for all were friendly
to Perseus and the Macedonians. This he said at the instigation of
Callicrates. And Xeno rose up next, a man of no small renown among
the Achæans, and spoke as follows. “As to this charge, I am a General
of the Achæans, and have neither acted against the Romans, nor shewn
any good will to Perseus. And I am ready to be tried on this charge
before either the Achæan League or the Romans.” This he said in the
boldness of a good conscience. But the Roman Senator at once seized
the opportunity his words suggested, and sent all whom Callicrates
accused of being friendly to Perseus to stand their trial at Rome.
Nothing of the kind had ever previously happened to the Greeks. For
the Macedonians in the zenith of their power, as under Philip, the son
of Amyntas, and Alexander, had never forced any Greeks who opposed
them to be sent into Macedonia, but had allowed them to be tried by
the Amphictyonic Council. But now every Achæan, however innocent, who
was accused by Callicrates, had to go to Rome, so it was decreed, and
more than 1,000 so went. And the Romans, treating them as if they had
been already condemned by the Achæans, imprisoned them in various
towns in Etruria, and, although the Achæans sent various embassies and
supplications about them, returned no answer. But 17 years afterwards
they released some 300 or even fewer, (who were all that remained in
Italy of the 1,000 and more Achæans), thinking they had been punished
sufficiently. And all those who escaped either on the journey to Rome
in the first instance, or afterwards from the towns to which they had
been sent by the Romans, were, if captured, capitally punished at once
and no excuse received.
CHAPTER XI.
And the Romans sent another Senator to Greece, Gallus by name, who
was sent to arbitrate on the disputes between the Lacedæmonians and
the Argives. This Gallus both spoke and acted with much hauteur
to the Greeks, and treated the Lacedæmonians and Argives with the
greatest contempt possible. For he disdained himself to arbitrate for
cities which had attained such great renown, and had fought for their
fatherland bravely and lavishly, and had previously submitted their
claims to no less an arbitrator than Philip the son of Amyntas, and
submitted the decision to Callicrates, the plague of all Greece. And
when the Ætolians who inhabit Pleuron came to Gallus, desiring release
from the Achæan League, they were allowed by him to send a private
embassy to Rome, and the Romans gave their consent to what they asked.
The Roman Senate also despatched to Gallus a decree, that he was at
liberty to release from the Achæan League as many towns as he liked.
And he carried out his orders, and meantime the Athenian people from
necessity rather than choice plundered Oropus which was a town subject
to them, for the Athenians had been reduced to a greater state of
poverty than any of the Greeks by the war with the Macedonians. The
Oropians appealed to the Senate at Rome, and they, thinking they
had not been treated well, ordered the Sicyonians to levy upon the
Athenians a fine proportionate to the harm they had done to the
Oropians. The Sicyonians, as the Athenians did not come into court
at the time of trial, fined them in their absence 500 talents, but
the Roman Senate at the request of the Athenians remitted all the
fine but 100 talents. And the Athenians did not pay even this, but
by promises and gifts prevailed upon the Oropians to agree, that an
Athenian garrison should occupy Oropus, and that the Athenians should
have hostages from the Oropians, and if the Oropians should bring
any further charges against the Athenians, then the Athenians were
to withdraw their garrison, and return their hostages. And no long
time elapsed when some of the garrison insulted some of the townsmen
of Oropus. They sent therefore envoys to Athens to demand back their
hostages, and at the same time to ask the Athenians to take away
their garrison according to their agreement. But the Athenians flatly
refused, on the plea that the outrage was committed by the garrison
and not the Athenian people, they promised however that those in
fault should be punished. And the Oropians appealed to the Achæans to
help them, but the Achæans refused out of friendship and respect to
the Athenians. Then the Oropians promised ten talents to Menalcidas,
a Lacedæmonian by birth but serving at this time as General of the
Achæans, if he would make the Achæans help them. And he promised half
the money to Callicrates, who because of his friendship with the Romans
had the greatest influence over the Achæans. And Callicrates responding
to the wishes of Menalcidas, it was determined to help the Oropians
against the Athenians. And some one announced news of this to the
Athenians, and they with all speed went to Oropus, and after plundering
whatever they had spared in former raids, withdrew their garrison.
And Menalcidas and Callicrates tried to persuade the Achæans who came
up too late for help, to make an inroad into Attica: but as they were
against it, especially those who had come from Lacedæmon, the army went
back again.
CHAPTER XII.
And the Oropians, though no help had come from the Achæans, yet had
to pay the money promised to Menalcidas. And he, when he had received
his bribe, thought it a misfortune that he would have to share any
part of it with Callicrates. So at first he practised putting off the
payment of the gift and other wiles, but soon afterwards he was so
bold as to deprive him of it altogether. My statement is confirmed
by the proverb, “One fire burns fiercer than another fire, and one
wolf is fiercer than other wolves, and one hawk flies swifter than
another hawk, since the most unscrupulous of all men, Callicrates, is
outdone in treachery by Menalcidas.” And Callicrates, who was never
superior to any bribe, and had got nothing out of his hatred to Athens,
was so vexed with Menalcidas that he deprived him of his office, and
prosecuted him on a capital charge before the Achæans, _viz._ that
he had tried to undermine the Achæans on his embassy to Rome, and
that he had endeavoured to withdraw Sparta from the Achæan league.
Menalcidas in this crisis gave 3 of the talents from Oropus to Diæus
of Megalopolis, who had been his successor as General of the Achæans,
and now, being zealous in his interest on account of his bribe, was
bent on saving Menalcidas in spite of the Achæans. But the Achæans
both privately and publicly were vexed with Diæus for the acquittal
of Menalcidas. But Diæus turned away their charges against him to the
hope of greater gain, by using the following wile as a pretext. The
Lacedæmonians had gone to the Senate at Rome about some debateable
land, and the Senate had told them to try all but capital cases before
the Achæan League. Such was their answer. But Diæus told the Achæans
what was not the truth, and deluded them by saying that the Roman
Senate allowed them to pass sentence of death upon a Spartan. They
therefore thought the Lacedæmonians could also pass sentence of life
and death on themselves: but the Lacedæmonians did not believe that
Diæus was speaking the truth, and wished to refer the matter to the
Senate at Rome. But the Achæans objected to this, that the cities
in the Achæan League had no right without common consent to send an
embassy privately to Rome. In consequence of these disputes war broke
out between the Achæans and the Lacedæmonians, and the Lacedæmonians,
knowing they were not able to fight the Achæans, sent embassies to
their cities and spoke privately to Diæus. All the cities returned
the same answer, that if their general ordered them to take the field
they could not disobey. For Diæus was in command, and he said that he
intended to fight not against Sparta but against all that troubled her.
And when the Spartan Senate asked who he thought were the criminals,
he gave them a list of 24 men who were prominent in Sparta. Thereupon
the opinion of Agasisthenes prevailed, a man previously held in good
repute, and who for the following advice got still more highly thought
of. He persuaded all those men whose names were mentioned to exile
themselves from Lacedæmon, and not by remaining there to bring on a
war on Sparta, and if they fled to Rome he said they would be soon
restored by the Romans. So they departed and were nominally tried
in their absence in the Spartan law-courts and condemned to death:
but Callicrates and Diæus were sent by the Achæans to Rome to plead
against these Spartan exiles before the Senate. And Callicrates died
on the road of some illness, nor do I know whether if he had gone on
to Rome he would have done the Achæans any good, or been to them the
source of greater evils. But Diæus carried on a bitter controversy
with Menalcidas before the Senate, not in the most decorous manner.
And the Senate returned answer that they would send Ambassadors, who
should arbitrate upon the differences between the Lacedæmonians and
Achæans. And the journey of these ambassadors from Rome was somehow
taken so leisurely, that Diæus had full time to deceive the Achæans,
and Menalcidas the Lacedæmonians. The Achæans were persuaded by Diæus
that the Lacedæmonians were directed by the Roman Senate to obey them
in all things. While Menalcidas deceived the Lacedæmonians altogether,
saying that they had been put by the Romans out of the jurisdiction of
the Achæan League altogether.
CHAPTER XIII.
In consequence of these differences with the Lacedæmonians the Achæans
made preparations again to go to war with them, and an army was
collected against Sparta by Damocritus, who was chosen General of
the Achæans at that time. And about the same time an army of Romans
under Metellus went into Macedonia, to fight against Andriscus, the
son of Perseus and grandson of Philip, who had revolted from the
Romans. And the war in Macedonia was finished by the Romans with
the greatest despatch. And Metellus gave his orders to the envoys,
who had been sent by the Roman Senate to see after affairs in Asia
Minor, to have a conference with the leaders of the Achæans before
they passed over into Asia Minor, and to forbid them to war against
Sparta, and to tell them they were to wait for the arrival from Rome
of the envoys who were despatched to arbitrate between them and the
Lacedæmonians. They gave these orders to Damocritus and the Achæans,
who were beforehand with them and had already marched to Lacedæmon, but
when they saw that the Achæans were not likely to pay any attention to
their orders, they crossed over into Asia Minor. And the Lacedæmonians,
out of spirit rather than from strength, took up arms and went out to
meet the enemy in defence of their country, but were in a short time
repulsed with the loss in the battle of about 1,000 who were in their
prime both in respect to age and bravery, and the rest of the army
fled pell mell into the town. And had Damocritus exhibited energy,
the Achæans might have pursued those who fled from the battle up to
the walls of Sparta: but he called them back from the pursuit at
once, and rather went in for raids and plundering than sat down to a
regular siege. He was therefore fined 50 talents by the Achæans as a
traitor for not following up his victory, and as he could not pay he
fled from the Peloponnese. And Diæus, who was chosen to succeed him
as General, agreed when Metellus sent a second message not to carry
on the war against the Lacedæmonians, but to wait for the arrival of
the arbitrators from Rome. After this he contrived another stratagem
against the Lacedæmonians: he won over all the towns round Sparta to
friendship with the Achæans, and introduced garrisons into them, so
as to make them _points d’appui_ against Sparta. And Menalcidas was
chosen by the Lacedæmonians as General against Diæus, and, as they were
badly off for all supplies of war and not least for money, and as their
soil had lain uncultivated, he persuaded them to violate the truce,
and took by storm and sacked the town Iasus, which was on the borders
of Laconia, but was at this time subject to the Achæans. And having
thus stirred up strife again between the Lacedæmonians and the Achæans
he was accused by the citizens, and, as he saw no hope of safety from
the danger that seemed imminent for the Lacedæmonians, he voluntarily
committed suicide by poison. Such was the end of Menalcidas, the most
imprudent General of the Lacedæmonians at this crisis, and earlier
still the most iniquitous person to the Achæans.
CHAPTER XIV.
At last the envoys, who had been sent from Rome to arbitrate between
the Lacedæmonians and Achæans, arrived in Greece, among others Orestes,
who summoned before him Diæus and the principal people in each city of
the Achæans. And when they came to his head-quarters,[7] he disclosed
to them all his views, _viz._ that the Roman Senate thought it just
that neither the Lacedæmonians nor Corinth should be forced into
the Achæan League, nor Argos, nor Heraclea under Mount Œta, nor the
Arcadians of Orchomenus, for they had no connection with the Achæans
by ancestry, but had been incorporated subsequently into the Achæan
League. As Orestes said this, the principal men of the Achæans would
not stay to listen to the end of his speech, but ran outside the
building and called the Achæans to the meeting. And they, when they
heard the decision of the Romans, immediately turned their fury on all
the Spartans who at that time resided at Corinth. And they plundered
everyone who they were sure was a Lacedæmonian, or whom they suspected
of being so by the way he wore his hair, or by his boots or dress
or name, and some who got the start of them, and fled for refuge to
Orestes’ head-quarters, they dragged thence by force. And Orestes
and his suite tried to check the Achæans from this outrage, and bade
them remember that they were acting outrageously against Romans. And
not many days afterwards the Achæans threw all the Lacedæmonians whom
they had arrested into prison, but dismissed all strangers whom they
had arrested on suspicion. And they sent Thearidas and several other
prominent Achæans as ambassadors to Rome, who after their departure
on meeting on the road some other envoys to settle the Lacedæmonian
and Achæan differences, who had been despatched later than Orestes,
turned back again. And after Diæus had served his time as General,
Critolaus was chosen as his successor by the Achæans; this Critolaus
was possessed with a grim unreasoning passion to fight against the
Romans, and, as the envoys from Rome to settle the disputes between
the Lacedæmonians and Achæans had just arrived, he went to Tegea in
Arcadia ostensibly to confer with them, but really because he did not
want the Achæans summoned to a general meeting, and, while in the
hearing of the Romans he sent messengers bidding the commissioners call
a general meeting of the Achæans, he privately urged the commissioners
not to attend the general meeting. And when the commissioners did
not come, then he displayed great guile to the Romans, for he told
them to wait for another general meeting of the Achæans that would be
held six months later, for he himself said that he could discuss no
question privately without the common consent of the Achæans. And the
Roman envoys, when they discovered they were being deceived, returned
to Rome. And Critolaus collected an army of Achæans at Corinth,
and persuaded them to war against Sparta, and also to wage war at
once against the Romans. When king and nation undertake war and are
unsuccessful, it seems rather the malignity of some divine power than
the fault of the originators of the war. But audacity and weakness
combined should rather be called madness than want of luck. And this
was the ruin of Critolaus and the Achæans. The Achæans were also
further incited against the Romans by Pytheas, who was at that time
Bœotarch at Thebes, and the Thebans undertook to take an eager part in
prosecuting the war. For the Thebans had been heavily punished by the
decision of Metellus, first they had to pay a fine to the Phocians for
invading Phocis, and secondly to the Eubœans for ravaging Eubœa, and
thirdly to the people of Amphissa for destroying their corn in harvest
time.
[7] Which were at Corinth, as we see in this chapter a little later.
CHAPTER XV.
And the Romans being informed of all this by the envoys whom they had
sent to Greece, and by the letters which Metellus wrote, passed a vote
against the Achæans that they were guilty of treason, and, as Mummius
had just been chosen consul, they ordered him to lead against them both
a naval and land force. And Metellus, directly he heard that Mummius
and the army with him had set out against the Achæans, made all haste
that he might win his laurels in the campaign first, before Mummius
could get up. He sent therefore messengers to the Achæans, bidding the
Lacedæmonians and all other cities mentioned by the Romans to leave
the Achæan League, and for the future he promised that there should
be no anger on the part of the Romans for any earlier disobedience.
At the same time that he made this Proclamation he brought his army
from Macedonia, marching through Thessaly and by the Lamiac Gulf. And
Critolaus and the Achæans, so far from accepting this proclamation
which tended to peace, sat down and blockaded Heraclea, because it
would not join the Achæan League. But when Critolaus heard from his
spies that Metellus and the Romans had crossed the Spercheus, then
he fled to Scarphea in Locris, not being bold enough to place the
Achæans in position between Heraclea and Thermopylæ, and there await
the attack of Metellus: for such a panic had seized him that he could
extract no hope from a spot where the Lacedæmonians had so nobly fought
for Greece against the Medes, and where at a later date the Athenians
displayed equal bravery against the Galati. And Metellus’ army came up
with Critolaus and the Achæans as they were in retreat a little before
Scarphea, and many they killed and about 1,000 they took alive. But
Critolaus was not seen alive after the battle, nor was he found among
the dead, but if he tried to swim across the muddy sea near Mount Œta,
he would have been very likely drowned without being observed. As to
his end therefore one may make various guesses. But the thousand picked
men from Arcadia, who had fought on Critolaus’ side in the action,
marched as far as Elatea in Phocis, and were received in that town
from old kinsmanship; but when the people of Phocis got news of the
reverse of Critolaus and the Achæans, they requested these Arcadians
to leave Elatea. And as they marched back to the Peloponnese Metellus
and the Romans met them at Chæronea. Then came the Nemesis of the Greek
gods upon the Arcadians, who were cut to pieces by the Romans, in the
very place where they had formerly left in the lurch the Greeks who
fought against Philip and the Macedonians.
And Diæus was again made Commander-in-Chief of the Achæan army, and he
imitated the action of Miltiades and the Athenians before Marathon by
manumitting the slaves, and made a levy of Achæans and Arcadians in
the prime of life from the various towns. And so his army altogether,
including the slaves, amounted to 600 cavalry, and 14,000 infantry.
Then he displayed the greatest want of strategy, for, though he knew
that Critolaus and all the Achæan host had crumbled away before
Metellus, yet he selected only 4,000 men, and put Alcamenes at their
head. They were despatched to Megara to garrison that town and, should
Metellus and the Romans come up, to stop their further progress. And
Metellus, after his rout of the Arcadian picked men at Chæronea, had
pushed on with his army to Thebes; for the Thebans had joined the
Achæans in besieging Heraclea, and had also taken part in the fight
near Scarphea. Then the inhabitants, men and women of all ages,
abandoned Thebes, and wandered about all over Bœotia, and fled to the
tops of the mountains. But Metellus would not allow his men either to
set on fire the temples of the gods or to pull down any buildings, or
to kill or take alive any of the fugitives except Pytheas, but him, if
they should capture him, they were to bring before him. And Pytheas
was forthwith found, and brought before Metellus, and executed. And
when the Roman army marched on Megara, then Alcamenes and his men were
seized with panic, and fled without striking a blow to Corinth, to the
camp of the Achæans. And the Megarians delivered up their town to the
Romans without a blow struck, and, when Metellus got to the Isthmus,
he issued a Proclamation, inviting the Achæans even now to peace and
harmony: for he had a strong desire that both Macedonia and Achaia
should be settled by him. But this intention of his was frustrated by
the folly of Diæus.
CHAPTER XVI.
Meantime Mummius, and with him Orestes, who was first sent from Rome
to settle the disputes between the Lacedæmonians and Achæans, reached
the Roman army one morning, took over the command, and sent Metellus
and his forces back to Macedonia, and himself waited at the Isthmus
till he had concentrated all his forces. His cavalry amounted to
3,500, his infantry to 22,000. There were also some Cretan bowmen, and
Philopœmen had brought some soldiers from Attalus, from Pergamus across
the Caicus. Mummius placed some of the Italian troops and allies, so
as to be an advanced post for all his army, 12 stades in the van. And
the Achæans, as this vanguard was left without defence through the
confidence of the Romans, attacked them, and slew some, but drove still
more back to the camp, and captured about 500 shields. By this success
the Achæans were so elated that they attacked the Roman army without
waiting for them to begin the battle. But when Mummius led out his army
to battle in turn, then the Achæan cavalry, which was opposite the
Roman cavalry, ran immediately, not venturing to make one stand against
the attack of the enemy’s cavalry. And the infantry, though dejected
at the rout of the cavalry, stood their ground against the wedge-like
attack of the Roman infantry, and though outnumbered and fainting under
their wounds, yet resisted bravely, till 1,000 picked men of the Romans
took them in flank, and so turned the battle into a complete rout of
the Achæans. And had Diæus been bold enough to hurry into Corinth after
the battle, and receive within its walls the runaways from the fight
and shut himself up there, the Achæans might have obtained better terms
from Mummius, if the war had been lengthened out by a siege. But as
it was, directly the Achæans gave way before the Romans, Diæus fled
for Megalopolis, exhibiting to the Achæans none of that spirit which
Callistratus, the son of Empedus, had displayed to the Athenians. For
he being in command of the cavalry in Sicily, when the Athenians and
their allies were badly defeated at the river Asinarus, boldly cut his
way through the enemy at the head of the cavalry, and, after getting
safe through with most of them to Catana, turned back again on the road
to Syracuse, and finding the enemy still plundering the camp of the
Athenians killed five with his own hand and then expired, himself and
his horse having received fatal wounds. He won fair fame both for the
Athenians and himself, and voluntarily met death, having preserved the
cavalry whom he led. But Diæus after ruining the Achæans announced to
the people of Megalopolis their impending ruin, and after slaying his
wife with his own hand that she might not become a captive took poison
and so died, resembling Menalcidas as in his greed for money so also in
the cowardice of his death.
And those of the Achæans who got safe to Corinth after the battle fled
during the night, as also did most of the Corinthians. But Mummius did
not enter Corinth at first, though the gates were open, as he thought
some ambush lay in wait for him within the walls, not till the third
day did he take Corinth in full force and set it on fire. And most of
those that were left in the city were slain by the Romans, and the
women and children were sold by Mummius, as also were the slaves who
had been manumitted and had fought on the side of the Achæans, and
had not been killed in action. And the most wonderful of the votive
offerings and other ornaments he carried off _to Rome_, and those of
less value he gave to Philopœmen, the general of Attalus’ troops, and
these spoils from Corinth were in my time at Pergamus. And Mummius
rased the walls of all the cities which had fought against the Romans,
and took away their arms, before any advisers what to do were sent from
Rome. And when they arrived, then he put down all democracies, and
appointed chief-magistrates according to property qualifications.[8]
And taxes were laid upon Greece, and those that had money were
forbidden to have land over the borders, and all the general meetings
were put down altogether, as those in Achaia, or Phocis, or Bœotia,
or any other part of Greece. But not many years afterwards the Romans
took mercy upon Greece, and allowed them their old national meetings
and to have land over the borders. They remitted also the fines which
Mummius had imposed, for he had ordered the Bœotians to pay the
people of Heraclea and Eubœa 100 talents, and the Achæans to pay the
Lacedæmonians 200 talents. The Greeks got remission of these fines from
the Romans, and a prætor was sent out from Rome, and is still, who is
not called by the Romans prætor of all Greece but prætor of Achaia,
because they reduced Greece through Achaia, which was then the foremost
Greek power. Thus ended the war when Antitheus was Archon at Athens, in
the 160th Olympiad, when Diodorus of Sicyon was victor in the course.
[8] That is, wherever Mummius found a democratical form of government,
there he established an oligarchy. Cf. Plat. _Rep._ 550. C. Id. _Legg._
698. B.
CHAPTER XVII.
At this time Greece was reduced to extreme weakness, being partially
ruined, and altogether reduced to great straits, by the deity. For
Argos, which had been a town of the greatest importance in the days
of the so-called heroes, lost its good fortune with the overthrow of
the Dorians. And the Athenians, who had survived the Peloponnesian
War and the plague, and had even lift up their heads again, were not
many years later destined to be subdued by the Macedonian power at its
height. From Macedonia also came down on Thebes in Bœotia the wrath of
Alexander. And the Lacedæmonians were first reduced by Epaminondas the
Theban, and afterwards by the war with the Achæans. And when Achaia
with great difficulty, like a tree that had received some early injury,
grew to great eminence in Greece, then the folly of its rulers stopped
its growth. And some time after the Empire of Rome came to Nero, and
he made Greece entirely free, and gave to the Roman people instead of
Greece the most fertile island of Sardinia. When I consider this action
of Nero I cannot but think the words of Plato the son of Aristo most
true, that crimes remarkable for their greatness and audacity are not
committed by everyday kind of people, but emanate from a noble soul
corrupted by a bad bringing up.[9] Not that this gift long benefited
Greece. For in the reign of Vespasian, who succeeded Nero, it suffered
from intestine discord, and Vespasian made the Greeks a second time
subject to taxes and bade them obey the prætor, saying that Greece
had unlearnt how to use liberty. Such are the particulars which I
ascertained.
The boundaries between Achaia and Elis are the river Larisus (near
which river there is a temple of Larissæan Athene), and Dyme, a town
of the Achæans, about 30 stades from the Larisus. Dyme was the only
town in Achaia that Philip the son of Demetrius reduced in war. And for
this reason Sulpicius, the Roman Prætor, allowed his army to plunder
Dyme. And Augustus afterwards assigned it to Patræ. In ancient days it
was called Palea, but when the Ionians were in possession of it they
changed its name to Dyme, I am not quite certain whether from some
woman of the district called Dyme, or from Dymas the son of Ægimius.
One is reduced to a little uncertainty about the name of the place also
by the Elegiac couplet at Olympia on the statue of Œbotas, a native of
Dyme, who in the 6th Olympiad was victor in the course, and in the 80th
Olympiad was declared by the oracle at Delphi worthy of a statue at
Olympia. The couplet runs as follows:
“Œbotas here the son of Œnias was victor in the course, and so
immortalized his native place Palea in Achaia.”
But there is no need for any real confusion from the town being called
in the inscription Palea and not Dyme, for the older names of places
are apt to be introduced by the Greeks into poetry, as they call
Amphiaraus and Adrastus the sons of Phoroneus, and Theseus the son of
Erechtheus.
And a little before you come to the town of Dyme there is on the right
of the way the tomb of Sostratus, who was a youth in the neighbourhood,
and they say Hercules was very fond of him, and as he died while
Hercules was still among men, Hercules erected his sepulchre and
offered to him the first fruits of his hair. There is also still a
device and pillar on the tomb and an effigy of Hercules on it. And I
was told that the natives still offer sacrifices to Sostratus.
There is also at Dyme a temple of Athene and a very ancient statue,
there is also a temple built to the Dindymene Mother and Attes. Who
Attes was I could not ascertain it being a mystery. But according to
the Elegiac lines of Hermesianax he was the son of Calaus the Phrygian,
and was born incapable of procreation. And when he grew up he removed
to Lydia, and celebrated there the rites of the Dindymene Mother, and
was so honoured that Zeus in jealousy sent a boar among the crops of
the Lydians. Thereupon several of the Lydians and Attes himself were
slain by this boar: and in consequence of this the Galati who inhabit
Pessinus will not touch pork. However this is not the universal
tradition about Attes, but there is a local tradition that Zeus in his
sleep dropt seed into the ground, and that in process of time there
sprang up a Hermaphrodite whom they called Agdistis; and the gods bound
this Agdistis and cut off his male privities. And an almond-tree sprang
from them and bare fruit, and they say the daughter of the river-god
Sangarius took of the fruit. And as she put some in her bosom the fruit
immediately vanished, and she became pregnant, and bare a boy, Attes,
who was exposed and brought up by a goat. And as the lad’s beauty was
more than human, Agdistis grew violently in love with him. And when he
was grown up his relations sent him to Pessinus to marry the king’s
daughter. And the wedding song was being sung when Agdistis appeared,
and Attes in his rage cut off his private parts, and his father in law
cut off his. Then Agdistis repented of his action towards Attes: and
some contrivance was found out by Zeus so that the body of Attes should
not decay nor rot. Such is the most notable legend about Attes.
At Dyme is also the tomb of the runner Œbotas. He was the first Achæan
who had won the victory at Olympia, and yet had received no especial
reward from his own people. So he uttered a solemn imprecation that
no Achæan might henceforth win the victory. And, as one of the gods
made it his business to see that the imprecation of Œbotas should be
valid, the Achæans learnt why they failed to secure victory at Olympia
by consulting the oracle at Delphi. Then they not only conferred other
honours upon Œbotas, but put up his statue at Olympia, after which
Sostratus of Pellene won the race for boys in the course. And even
now the custom prevails amongst the Achæans who intend to compete at
Olympia to offer sacrifices to Œbotas, and, if they are victorious, to
crown his statue at Olympia.
[9] See Plato _Rep._ vi. 491. E.
CHAPTER XVIII.
About 40 stades from Dyme the river Pirus discharges itself into the
sea, near which river the Achæans formerly had a town called Olenus.
Those who have written about Hercules and his doings have not dwelt
least upon Dexamenus the king of Olenus, and the hospitality Hercules
received at his court. And that Olenus was originally a small town is
confirmed by the Elegy written by Hermesianax on the Centaur Eurytion.
But in process of time they say the people of Olenus left it in
consequence of its weakness, and betook themselves to Piræ and Euryteæ.
About 80 stades from the river Pirus is the town of Patræ, not far
from which the river Glaucus discharges itself into the sea. The
antiquarians at Patræ say that Eumelus, an Autochthon, was the first
settler, and was king over a few subjects. And when Triptolemus came
from Attica Eumelus received from him corn to sow, and under his
instructions built a town called Aroe, which he so called from tilling
the soil. And when Triptolemus had gone to sleep they say Antheas, the
son of Eumelus, yoked the dragons to the chariot of Triptolemus, and
tried himself to sow corn: but he died by falling out of the chariot.
And Triptolemus and Eumelus built in common the town Anthea, which they
called after him. And a third city called Mesatis was built between
Anthea and Aroe. And the traditions of the people of Patræ about
Dionysus, that he was reared at Mesatis, and was plotted against by
the Titans there and was in great danger, and the explanation of the
name Mesatis, all this I leave to the people of Patræ to explain, as
I don’t contradict them. And when the Achæans drove the Ionians out
later, Patreus the son of Preugenes and grandson of Agenor forbade the
Achæans to settle at Anthea and Mesatis, but made the circuit of the
walls near Aroe wider so as to include all that town, and called it
Patræ after his own name. And Agenor the father of Preugenes was the
son of Areus the son of Ampyx, and Ampyx was the son of Pelias, the
son of Æginetus, the son of Deritus, the son of Harpalus, the son of
Amyclas the son of Lacedæmon. Such was the genealogy of Patreus. And
in process of time the people of Patræ were the only Achæans that went
into Ætolia from friendship to the Ætolians, to join them in their war
against the Galati. But meeting most serious reverses in battle, and
most of them suffering also from great poverty, they left Patræ all
but a few. And those who remained got scattered about the country and
followed the pursuit of agriculture, and inhabited the various towns
outside Patræ, as Mesatis and Anthea and Boline and Argyra and Arba.
And Augustus, either because he thought Patræ a convenient place on the
coast or for some other reason, introduced into it people from various
towns. He incorporated also with it the Achæans from Rhypæ, after first
rasing Rhypæ to the ground. And to the people of Patræ alone of all the
Achæans he granted their freedom, and gave them other privileges as
well, such as the Romans are wont to grant their colonists.
And in the citadel of Patræ is the temple of Laphrian Artemis: the
goddess has a foreign title, and the statue also is foreign. For
when Calydon and the rest of Ætolia was dispeopled by the Emperor
Augustus, that he might people with Ætolians his city of Nicopolis
near Actium, then the people of Patræ got this statue of Laphrian
Artemis. And as he had taken many statues from Ætolia and Acarnania
for his city Nicopolis, so he gave to the people of Patræ various
spoils from Calydon, and this statue of Laphrian Artemis, which even
now is honoured in the citadel of Patræ. And they say the goddess was
called Laphrian from a Phocian called Laphrius, the son of Castalius
and grandson of Delphus, who they say made the old statue of Artemis.
Others say that the wrath of Artemis against Œneus fell lighter upon
the people of Calydon when this title was given to the goddess. The
figure in the statue is a huntress, and the statue is of ivory and
gold, and the workmanship is by Menæchmus and Soidas. It is conjectured
that they were not much later than the period of Canachus the Sicyonian
or the Æginetan Callon. And every year the people of Patræ hold
the festival called Laphria to Artemis, in which they observe their
national mode of sacrifice. Round the altar they put wood yet green in
a circle, and pile it up about 16 cubits high. And the driest wood lies
within this circle on the altar. And they contrive at the time of the
festival a smooth ascent to the altar, piling up earth so as to form a
kind of steps. First they have a most splendid procession to Artemis,
in which the virgin priestess rides last in a chariot drawn by stags,
and on the following day they perform the sacrificial rites, which both
publicly and privately are celebrated with much zeal. For they place
alive on the altar birds good to eat and all other kinds of victims,
as wild boars and stags and does, and moreover the young of wolves and
bears, and some wild animals fully grown, and they place also upon the
altar the fruit of any trees that they plant. And then they set fire
to the wood. And I have seen a bear or some other animal at the first
smell of the fire trying to force a way outside, some even actually
doing so by sheer strength. But they thrust them back again into the
blazing pile. Nor do they record any that were ever injured by the
animals on these occasions.
CHAPTER XIX.
And between the temple of Laphria and the altar is the sepulchre of
Eurypylus. Who he was and why he came into this country I shall relate,
when I have first described the condition of things when he came into
these parts. Those of the Ionians who dwelt at Aroe and Anthea and
Mesatis had in common a grove and temple of Artemis Triclaria, and the
Ionians kept her festival annually all night long. And the priestess of
the goddess was a maiden, who was dismissed when she married. They have
a tradition that once the priestess of the goddess was one Comætho,
a most beautiful maiden, and that Melanippus was deeply in love with
her, who in all other respects and in handsomeness of appearance outdid
all of his own age. And as Melanippus won the maiden’s love as well,
he asked her in marriage of her father. It is somehow common to old
age to be in most respects the very antipodes to youth, and especially
in sympathy with love, so that Melanippus, who loved and was beloved,
got no encouragement either from his own parents or from the parents
of Comætho. And it is evident from various other cases as well as this
that love is wont to confound human laws, and even to upset the honour
due to the gods, as in this case, for Melanippus and Comætho satisfied
their ardent love in the very temple of Artemis, and afterwards made
the temple habitually their bridal-chamber. And forthwith the wrath
of Artemis came on the people of the country, their land yielded no
fruit, and unusual sicknesses came upon the people, and the mortality
was much greater than usual. And when they had recourse to the oracle
at Delphi, the Pythian Priestess laid the blame on Melanippus and
Comætho, and the oracle ordered them to sacrifice to Artemis annually
the most handsome maiden and lad. It was on account of this sacrifice
that the river near the temple of Triclaria was called Amilichus
(_Relentless_): it had long had no name. Now all these lads and maidens
had done nothing against the goddess but had to die for Melanippus and
Comætho, and they and their relations suffered most piteously. I do not
put the whole responsibility for this upon Comætho and Melanippus, for
to human beings alone is love felt worth life. These human sacrifices
are said to have been stopped for the following reason. The oracle at
Delphi had foretold that a foreign king would come to their country,
and that he would bring with him a foreign god, and that he would stop
this sacrifice to Artemis Triclaria. And after the capture of Ilium,
when the Greeks shared the spoil, Eurypylus the son of Euæmon got a
chest, in which there was a statue of Dionysus, the work some say of
Hephæstus, and a gift of Zeus to Dardanus. But there are two other
traditions about this chest, one that Æneas left it behind him when he
fled from Ilium, the other that it was thrown away by Cassandra as a
misfortune to any Greek who found it. However this may be, Eurypylus
opened the chest and saw the statue, and was driven out of his mind
by the sight. And most of his time he remained mad, though he came
to himself a little at times. And being in that condition he did not
sail to Thessaly, but to Cirrha and the Cirrhæan Gulf; and he went
to Delphi and consulted the oracle about his disorder. And they say
the oracle told him, where he should find people offering a strange
sacrifice, to dedicate his chest and there dwell. And the wind drove
Eurypylus’ ships to the sea near Aroe, and when he went ashore he saw
a lad and maiden being led to the altar of Artemis Triclaria. And he
saw at once that the oracle referred to this sacrifice, the people of
the place also remembered the oracle, seeing a king whom they had never
before seen, and as to the chest they suspected that there was some
god in it. And so Eurypylus got cured of his disorder, and this human
sacrifice was stopped, and the river was now called Milichus (_Mild_).
Some indeed have written that it was not the Thessalian Eurypylus to
whom what I have just recorded happened, but they want people to think
that Eurypylus (the son of Dexamenus who was king at Olenus), who
accompanied Hercules to Ilium, received the chest from Hercules. The
rest of their tradition is the same as mine. But I cannot believe that
Hercules was ignorant of the contents of this chest, or that if he
knew of them he would have given the chest as a present to a comrade.
Nor do the people of Patras record any other Eurypylus than the son of
Euæmon, and to him they offer sacrifices every year, when they keep the
festival to Dionysus.
CHAPTER XX.
The name of the god inside the chest is Æsymnetes. Nine men, who are
chosen by the people for their worth, look after his worship, and the
same number of women. And one night during the festival the priest
takes the chest outside the temple. That night has special rites. All
the lads in the district go down to the Milichus with crowns on their
heads made of ears of corn: for so used they in old time to dress up
those whom they were leading to sacrifice to Artemis. But in our day
they lay these crowns of ears of corn near the statue of the goddess,
and after bathing in the river, and again putting on crowns this time
of ivy, they go to the temple of Æsymnetes. Such are their rites on
this night. And inside the grove of Laphrian Artemis is the temple of
Athene called Pan-Achæis, the statue of the goddess is of ivory and
gold.
And as you go to the lower part of the city you come to the temple of
the Dindymene Mother, where Attes is honoured. They do not show his
statue, but there is one of the Mother wrought in stone. And in the
market-place there is a temple of Olympian Zeus, he is on his throne
and Athene is standing by it. And next Olympian Zeus is a statue of
Hera, and a temple of Apollo, and a naked Apollo in brass, and sandals
are on his feet, and one foot is on the skull of an ox. Alcæus has
shown that Apollo rejoices especially in oxen in the Hymn that he
wrote about Hermes, how Hermes filched the oxen of Apollo, and Homer
still earlier than Alcæus has described how Apollo tended the oxen of
Laomedon for hire. He has put the following lines in the Iliad into
Poseidon’s mouth.
“I was drawing a spacious and handsome wall round the city of the
Trojans, that it might be impregnable, while you, Phœbus, were tending
the slow-paced cows with the crumpled horns.”[10]
That is therefore one would infer the reason why the god is represented
with his foot on the skull of an ox. And in the market-place in the
open air is a statue of Athene, and in front of it is the tomb of
Patreus.
And next to the market-place is the Odeum, and there is a statue of
Apollo there well worth seeing, it was made from the spoil that the
people of Patræ got, when they alone of the Achæans helped the Ætolians
against the Galati. And this Odeum is beautified in other respects more
than any in Greece except the one at Athens: that excels this both in
size and in all its fittings, it was built by the Athenian Herodes
in memory of his dead wife. In my account of Attica I passed that
Odeum over, because that part of my work was written before Herodes
began building it. And at Patræ, as you go from the market-place
where the temple of Apollo is, there is a gate, and the device on
the gate consists of golden effigies of Patreus and Preugenes and
Atherion, all three companions and contemporaries. And right opposite
the market-place at this outlet is the grove and temple of Artemis
Limnatis. While the Dorians were already in possession of Lacedæmon and
Argos, they say that Preugenes in obedience to a dream took the statue
of Artemis Limnatis from Sparta, and that the trustiest of his slaves
shared with him in the enterprize. And that statue from Lacedæmon they
keep generally at Mesoa, because originally it was taken by Preugenes
there, but when they celebrate the festival of Artemis Limnatis, one
of the servants of the goddess takes the old statue from Mesoa to the
sacred precincts at Patræ: in which are several temples, not built in
the open air, but approached by porticoes. The statue of Æsculapius
except the dress is entirely of stone, that of Athene is in ivory and
gold. And in front of the temple of Athene is the tomb of Preugenes, to
whom they offer funereal rites as to Patreus annually, at the time of
the celebration of the feast to Artemis Limnatis. And not far from the
theatre are temples of Nemesis and Aphrodite: their statues are large
and of white marble.
[10] Iliad, xxi. 446-448.
CHAPTER XXI.
In this part of the city there is also a temple to Dionysus under the
title of Calydonian: because the statue of the god was brought from
Calydon. And when Calydon was still inhabited, among other Calydonians
who were priests to the god was one Coresus, who of all men suffered
most grievously from love. He was enamoured of the maiden Callirhoe,
but in proportion to the greatness of his love was the dislike of the
maiden to him. And as by all his wooing and promises and gifts the
maiden’s mind was not in the least changed, he went as a suppliant to
the statue of Dionysus. And the god heard the prayer of his priest, and
the Calydonians forthwith became insane as with drink, and died beside
themselves. They went therefore in their consternation to consult
the oracle at Dodona: for those who dwell on this mainland, as the
Ætolians and their neighbours the Acarnanians and Epirotes, believe in
the oracular responses they get from doves and the oak there. And they
were oracularly informed at Dodona that it was the wrath of Dionysus
that had caused this trouble, which would not end till Coresus either
sacrificed to Dionysus Callirhoe or somebody who should volunteer to
die instead of her. And as the maiden found no means of escape, she
fled to those who had brought her up, but obtaining no aid from them,
she had nothing now left but to die. But when all the preliminary
sacrificial rites that had been ordered at Dodona had taken place, and
she was led to the altar as victim, then Coresus took his place as
sacrificial priest, and yielding to love and not to anger slew himself
instead of her. And when she saw Coresus lying dead the poor girl
repented, and, moved by pity and shame at his fate, cut her own throat
at the well in Calydon not far from the harbour, which has ever since
been called Callirhoe after her.
And near the theatre is the sacred enclosure of some woman who was a
native of Patræ. And there are here some statues of Dionysus of the
same number and name as the ancient towns of the Achæans, for the god
is called Mesateus and Antheus and Aroeus. These statues during the
festival of Dionysus are carried to the temple of Æsymnetes, which
is near the sea on the right as you go from the market-place. And as
you go lower down from the temple of Æsymnetes there is a temple and
stone statue to Recovery, originally they say erected by Eurypylus when
he recovered from his madness. And near the harbour is a temple of
Poseidon, and his statue erect in white stone. Poseidon, besides the
names given to him by poets to deck out their poetry, has several local
names privately given to him, but his universal titles are Pelagæus
and Asphalius and Hippius. One might urge several reasons why he was
called Hippius, but I conjecture he got the name because he was the
inventor of riding. Homer at any rate in that part of his Iliad about
the horse-races has introduced Menelaus invoking this god in an oath.
“Touch the horses, and swear by the Earth-Shaker Poseidon that you did
not purposely with guile retard my chariot.”[11]
And Pamphus, the most ancient Hymn-writer among the Athenians, says
that Poseidon was “the giver of horses and ships with sails.” So he
got the name Hippius probably from riding and for no other reason.
Also at Patræ not very far from that of Poseidon are temples of
Aphrodite. One of the statues a generation before my time was fished up
by some fishermen in their net. There are also some statues very near
the harbour, as Ares in bronze, and Apollo, and Aphrodite. She has a
sacred enclosure near the harbour, and her statue is of wood except the
fingers and toes and head which are of stone. At Patræ there is also
a grove near the sea, which is a most convenient race-course, and a
most salubrious place of resort in summer time. In this grove there are
temples of Apollo and Aphrodite, their statues also in stone. There is
also a temple of Demeter, she and Proserpine are standing, but Earth
is seated. And in front of the temple of Demeter is a well, which has
a stone wall on the side near the temple, but there is a descent to it
outside. And there is here an unerring oracle, not indeed for every
matter, but in the case of diseases. They fasten a mirror to a light
cord and let it down into this well, poising it so as not to be covered
by the water, but that the rim of the mirror only should touch the
water. And then they look into the mirror after prayer to the goddess
and burning of incense. And it shews them whether the sick person will
die or recover. Such truth is there in this water. Similarly very near
Cyaneæ in Lycia is the oracle of Apollo Thyrxis, and the water there
shows anyone looking into the well whatever he wants to see. And near
the grove at Patræ are two temples of Serapis, and in one of them the
statue of the Egyptian Belus. The people of Patræ say that he fled to
Aroe from grief at the death of his sons, and that he shuddered at
the name of Argos, and was still more afraid of Danaus. There is also
a temple of Æsculapius at Patræ above the citadel and near the gates
which lead to Mesatis.
And the women at Patræ are twice as numerous as the men, and devoted to
Aphrodite if any women are. And most of them get their living by the
flax that grows in Elis, which they make into nets for the hair and
other parts of dress.
[11] Iliad, xxiii. 584, 5.
CHAPTER XXII.
And Pharæ, a town in Achaia, is reckoned with Patræ since the days of
Augustus, and the road to Pharæ from Patræ is about 150 stades, and
from the sea to the mainland about 70 stades. And the river Pierus
flows near Pharæ, the same river I think which flows by the ruins of
Olenus, and is called Pirus by the men who live near the sea. Near
the river is a grove of plane-trees, most of them hollow from old
age, and of such a size that whoever chooses can eat and sleep inside
them.[12] The circuit of the market-place is large at Pharæ according
to ancient custom, and in the middle of the market-place is a stone
statue of bearded Hermes; it is on the ground, no great size, and of
square shape. And the inscription on it says that it was an offering
of the Messenian Simylus. It is called Hermes of the Market-place,
and near it is an oracle. And before the statue is a hearth made of
stone, and some brazen lamps are fastened with lead to the hearth.
He that wants to consult the oracle of the god comes at eventide and
burns some frankincense on the hearth, and when he has filled the lamps
with oil and lit them, he lays on the altar on the right of the statue
the ordinary piece of money, a brass coin, and whispers his question
whatever it is in the ear of the statue of the god. Then he departs
from the market-place and stops up his ears. And when he has gone a
little distance off he takes his hands from his ears, and whatever he
next hears is he thinks the oracular response. The Egyptians have a
similar kind of oracle in the temple of Apis. And at Pharæ the water
is sacred, Hermes’ well is the name they give to it, and the fish in
it they do not catch, because they think them sacred to the god. And
very near the statue are 30 square stones, which the people of Pharæ
venerate highly, calling each by the name of one of the gods. And in
early times all the Greeks paid to unhewn stones, and not statues, the
honours due unto the gods. And about 15 stades from Pharæ is a grove of
Castor and Pollux. Bay trees chiefly grow in it, and there is neither
temple in it nor any statues. The people of the place say the statues
were removed to Rome. And in the grove at Pharæ is an altar of unhewn
stones. But I could not learn whether Phares, the son of Phylodamia,
the daughter of Danaus, or some one of the same name was the founder of
the town.
And Tritea, also a town of Achaia, is built in the interior of the
country, and reckoned with Patræ by Imperial order. The distance from
Pharæ to Tritea is about 120 stades. And before you get to it there
is a tomb in white stone, well worth seeing in other respects and not
least for the paintings on it, which are by Nicias. There is a throne
of ivory and a young and good-looking woman seated on it, and a maid
is standing by with a sun-shade. And a young man without a beard is
standing up clad in a tunic, with a scarlet cloak over the tunic. And
near him is a servant with some javelins, driving some hunting dogs.
I could not ascertain their names; but everybody infers that they are
husband and wife buried together. The founder of Tritea was some say
Celbidas, who came from Cumæ in the Opic land, others say that Ares had
an intrigue with Tritea the daughter of Triton, who was a priestess of
Athene, and Melanippus their son when he was grown up built the town,
and called it after the name of his mother. At Tritea there is a temple
to what are called the Greatest Gods, their statues are made of clay:
a festival is held to them annually, like the festival the Greeks hold
to Dionysus. There is also a temple of Athene, and a stone statue still
to be seen: the old statue was taken to Rome according to the tradition
of the people of Tritea. The people of the place are accustomed to
sacrifice both to Ares and Tritea.
These towns are at some distance from the sea and well inland: but as
you sail from Patræ to Ægium you come to the promontory of Rhium, about
50 stades from Patræ, and 15 stades further you come to the harbour of
Panormus. And about as many stades from Panormus is what is called the
wall of Athene, from which to the harbour of Erineus is 90 stades’ sail
along the coast, and 60 to Ægium from Erineus, but by land it is about
40 stades less. And not far from Patræ is the river Milichus, and the
temple of Triclaria (with no statue) on the right. And as you go on
from Milichus there is another river called Charadrus, and in summer
time the herds that drink of it mostly breed male cattle, for that
reason the herdsmen keep all cattle but cows away from it. These they
leave by the river, because both for sacrifices and work bulls are more
convenient than cows, but in all other kinds of cattle the female is
thought most valuable.
[12] See the wonderful account of Pliny. _Nat. Hist._ xii. 1.
CHAPTER XXIII.
And next to the river Charadrus are some ruins not very easy to trace
of the town of Argyra, and the well Argyra on the right of the high
road, and the river Selemnus that flows into the sea. The local account
is that Selemnus was a handsome youth who fed his flocks here, and they
say the sea-nymph Argyra was enamoured of him, and used to come up from
the sea and sleep with him. But in a short time Selemnus lost all his
good looks, and the Nymph no longer came to visit him, and Aphrodite
turned the poor lad Selemnus, who was deprived of Argyra and dying for
love, into a river. I tell the tale as the people of Patræ told it me.
And when he became a river he was still enamoured of Argyra, (as the
story goes about Alpheus that he still loved Arethusa,) but Aphrodite
at last granted him forgetfulness of Argyra. I have also heard another
tradition, _viz._ that the water of the Selemnus is a good love-cure
both for men and women, for if they bathe in this water they forget
their love. If there is any truth in this tradition, the water of
Selemnus would be more valuable to mankind than much wealth.
And at a little distance from Argyra is the river called Bolinæus, and
a town once stood there called Bolina. Apollo they say was enamoured
of a maiden called Bolina, and she fled from him and threw herself
into the sea, and became immortal through his favour. And there is
a promontory here jutting out into the sea, about which there is a
tradition that it was here that Cronos threw the sickle into the
sea, with which he had mutilated his father Uranus, so they call the
promontory Drepanum (_sickle_). And a little above the high road are
the ruins of Rhypæ, which is about 30 stades from Ægium. And the
district round Ægium is watered by the river Phœnix and another river
Miganitas, both of which flow into the sea. And a portico near the town
was built for the athlete Strato, (who conquered at Olympia on the
same day in the pancratium and in the wrestling), to practise in. And
at Ægium they have an ancient temple of Ilithyia, her statue is veiled
from her head to her toes with a finely-woven veil, and is of wood
except the face and fingers and toes, which are of Pentelican marble.
One of the hands is stretched out straight, and in the other she holds
a torch. One may symbolize Ilithyia’s torches thus, that the throes of
travail are to women as it were a fire. Or the torches may be supposed
to symbolize that Ilithyia brings children to the light. The statue is
by the Messenian Damophon.
And at no great distance from the temple of Ilithyia is the sacred
enclosure of Æsculapius, and statues in it of Hygiea and Æsculapius.
The iambic line on the basement says that they were by the Messenian
Damophon. In this temple of Æsculapius I had a controversy with a
Sidonian, who said that the Phœnicians had more accurate knowledge
generally about divine things than the Greeks, and their tradition was
that Apollo was the father of Æsculapius, but that he had no mortal
woman for his mother, and that Æsculapius was nothing but the air which
is beneficial for the health of mankind and all beasts, and that Apollo
was the Sun, and was most properly called the father of Æsculapius,
because the Sun in its course regulates the Seasons and gives health to
the air. All this I assented to, but was obliged to point out that this
view was as much Greek as Phœnician, since at Titane in Sicyonia the
statue of Æsculapius was called Health, and that it was plain even to
a child that the course of the sun on the earth produces health among
mankind.
At Ægium there is also a temple to Athene and another to Hera, and
Athene has two statues in white stone, but the statue of Hera may be
looked upon by none but women, and those only the priestesses. And
near the theatre is a temple and statue of beardless Dionysus. There
are also in the market-place sacred precincts of Zeus Soter, and two
statues on the left as you enter both of brass, the one without a beard
seemed to me the older of the two. And in a building right opposite
the road are brazen statues of Poseidon, Hercules, Zeus, and Athene,
and they call them the Argive gods, because the Argive tradition says
they were made at Argos, but the people of Ægium say it was because the
statues were deposited with them by the Argives. And they say further
that they were ordered to sacrifice to these statues every day: and
they found out a trick by which they could sacrifice as required, but
without any expense by feasting on the victims: and eventually these
statues were asked back by the Argives, and the people of Ægium asked
for the money they had spent on the sacrifices first, so the Argives
(as they could not pay this) left the statues with them.
CHAPTER XXIV.
At Ægium there is also near the market-place a temple in common to
Apollo and Artemis, and in the market-place is a temple to Artemis
alone dressed like a huntress, and the tomb of Talthybius the herald.
Talthybius has also a monument erected to him at Sparta, and both
cities perform funeral rites in his honour. And near the sea at Ægium
Aphrodite has a temple, and next Poseidon, and next Proserpine the
daughter of Demeter, and fourthly Zeus Homagyrius (_the Gatherer_).
There are statues too of Zeus and Aphrodite and Athene. And Zeus was
surnamed Homagyrius, because Agamemnon gathered together at this place
the most famous men in Greece, to deliberate together in common how to
attack the realm of Priam. Agamemnon has much renown generally, but
especially because with the army that accompanied him first, without
any reinforcements, he sacked Ilium and all the surrounding cities. And
next to Zeus Homagyrius is the temple of Pan-Achæan Demeter. And the
sea-shore at Ægium, where these temples just described are, furnishes
abundantly water good to drink from a well. There is also a temple to
Safety, the statue of the goddess may be seen by none but the priests,
but the rites are as follows. They take from the altar of the goddess
cakes made after the fashion of the country and throw them into the
sea, and say that they send them to Arethusa in Syracuse. The people at
Ægium have also several brazen statues as Zeus as a boy, and Hercules
without a beard, by Ageladas the Argive. Priests are chosen annually
for these gods, and each of the statues remains in the house of the
priest. And in older times the most beautiful boy was chosen as priest
to Zeus, and when their beards grew then the priest’s office passed
to some other beautiful boy. And Ægium is the place where the general
meeting of the Achæans is still held, just as the Amphictyonic Council
is held at Thermopylæ and Delphi.
As you go on you come to the river Selinus, and about 40 stades from
Ægium is a place called Helice near the sea. It was once an important
city, and the Ionians had there the most holy temple of Poseidon of
Helice. The worship of Poseidon of Helice still remained with them,
both when they were driven by the Achæans to Athens, and when they
afterwards went from Athens to the maritime parts of Asia Minor. And
the Milesians as you go to the well Biblis have an altar of Poseidon
of Helice before their city, and similarly at Teos the same god has
precincts and an altar. Even Homer has written of Helice, and of
Poseidon of Helice.[13] And later on the Achæans here, who drove some
suppliants from the temple and slew them, met with quick vengeance from
Poseidon, for an earthquake coming over the place rapidly overthrew
all the buildings, and made the very site of the city difficult for
posterity to find. Previously in earthquakes, remarkable for their
violence or extent, the god has generally given previous intimation
by signs. For either continuous rain or drought are mostly wont to
precede their approach: and in winter the air is hotter, and in summer
the disk of the sun is misty and has a different colour to its usual
colour, being either redder or slightly inclining to black. And the
springs are generally deficient in water, and gusts of wind sweeping
over the district uproot the trees, and in the sky are meteors with
flames of fire, and the appearance of the stars is unusual and excites
consternation in the beholders, and moreover vapours and exhalations
rise up out of the ground. And many other indications does the god
give in the case of violent earthquakes. And earthquakes are not
all similar, but those who have paid attention to such things from
the first or been instructed by others have been able to recognize
the following phenomena. The mildest of them, if indeed the word
mildness is applicable to any of them, is when simultaneously with the
first motion of the earth and with the rocking of buildings to their
foundation a counter motion restores them to their former position. And
in such an earthquake you may see pillars nearly rooted up falling into
their places again, and walls that gaped asunder joining again: and
beams that slipped out of their fittings slipping back again: so too in
the pipes of conduits, if any pipe bursts from the pressure of water,
the broken parts weld together again better than any workmen could
adjust them. Another kind of earthquake destroys everything within its
range, and, on whatever it spends its force, forthwith batters it down,
like the military engines employed in sieges. But the most deadly kind
of earthquake may be recognized by the following concomitants. The
breath of a man in a long-continued fever comes thicker and with much
effort, and this is marked in other parts of the body, but especially
by feeling the pulse. Similarly this kind of earthquake they say
undermines the foundations of buildings, and makes them rock to and
fro, like the effect produced by the burrowing of moles in the earth.
And this is the only kind of earthquake that leaves no trace in the
earth of previous habitation. This was the kind of earthquake that
rased Helice to the ground. And they say another misfortune happened
to the place in the winter at the same time. The sea encroached over
much of the district and quite flooded Helice with water: and the grove
of Poseidon was so submerged that the tops of the trees alone were
visible. And so the god suddenly sending the earthquake, and the sea
encroaching simultaneously, the inundation swept away Helice and its
population. A similar catastrophe happened to the town of Sipylus which
was swallowed up by a landslip. And when this landslip occurred in the
rock water came forth, and became a lake called Saloe, and the ruins
of Sipylus were visible in the lake, till the water pouring down hid
them from view. Visible too are the ruins of Helice, but not quite as
clearly as formerly, because they have been effaced by the action of
the sea.
[13] Hom. Iliad, ii. 575; viii. 203; xx. 404.
CHAPTER XXV.
One may learn not only from this ruin of Helice but also from other
cases that the vengeance of heaven for outrages upon suppliants
is sure. Thus the god at Dodona plainly exhorted men to respect
suppliants. For to the Athenians in the days of Aphidas came the
following message from Zeus at Dodona.
“Think of the Areopagus and the smoking altars of the Eumenides, for
you must treat as suppliants the Lacedæmonians conquered in battle.
Slay them not with the sword, harm not suppliants. Suppliants are
inviolable.”
This the Greeks remembered when the Peloponnesians came to Athens,
in the reign of Codrus the son of Melanthus. All the rest of the
Peloponnesian army retired from Attica, when they heard of the death
of Codrus and the circumstances attending it. For they did not any
longer expect victory, as Codrus had devoted himself in accordance with
the oracle at Delphi. But some of the Lacedæmonians got stealthily
into the city by night, and at daybreak perceived that their friends
had retired, and, as the Athenians began to muster against them, fled
for safety to the Areopagus and to the altars of the goddesses called
the August.[14] And the Athenians allowed the suppliants to depart
scot-free on this occasion, but some years later the authorities
destroyed the suppliants of Athene, those of Cylo’s party who had
occupied the Acropolis, and both the murderers and their children were
considered accursed by the goddess. Upon the Lacedæmonians too who had
killed some suppliants in the temple of Poseidon at Tænarum came an
earthquake so long-continued and violent, that no house in Lacedæmon
could stand against it. And the destruction of Helice happened when
Asteus was Archon at Athens, in the 4th year of the 101st Olympiad, in
which Damon of Thuria was victor. And as there were none left remaining
at Helice the people of Ægium occupied their territory.
And next to Helice, as you turn from the sea to the right, you will
come to the town of Cerynea, built on a hill above the high-road. It
got its name either from some local ruler or from the river Cerynites,
which rises in Arcadia in the Mountain Cerynea, and flows through
the district of those Achæans, who came from Argolis and dwelt there
through the following mischance. The fort of Mycenæ could not be
captured by the Argives owing to its strength, (for it had been built
by the Cyclopes as the wall at Tiryns also), but the people of Mycenæ
were obliged to evacuate their city because their supplies failed,
and some of them went to Cleonæ, but more than half took refuge with
Alexander in Macedonia, who had sent Mardonius the son of Gobryas
on a mission to the Athenians, and the rest went to Cerynea, and
Cerynea became more powerful through this influx of population, and
more notable in after times through this coming into the town of
the people of Mycenæ. And at Cerynea is a temple of the Eumenides,
built they say by Orestes. Whatever wretch, stained with blood or
any other defilement, comes into this temple to look round, he is
forthwith driven frantic by his fears. And for this reason people are
not admitted into this temple indiscriminately. The statues of the
goddesses in the temple are of wood and not very large: but the statues
of some women in the vestibule are of stone and artistically carved:
the natives say that they are some priestesses of the Eumenides.
And as you return from Cerynea to the high road, and proceed along it
no great distance, the second turn to the right from the sea takes
you by a winding road to Bura, which lies on a hill. The town got its
name they say from Bura the daughter of Ion, the Son of Xuthus by
Helice. And when Helice was totally destroyed by the god, Bura also
was afflicted by a mighty earthquake, so that none of the old statues
were left in the temples. And those that happened to be at that time
away on military service or some other errand were the only people of
Bura preserved. There are temples here to Demeter, and Aphrodite, and
Dionysus, and Ilithyia. Their statues are of Pentelican marble by the
Athenian Euclides. Demeter is robed. There is also a temple to Isis.
And as you descend from Bura to the sea is the river called Buraicus,
and a not very big Hercules in a cave, surnamed Buraicus, whose
oracular responses are ascertained by dice on a board. He that consults
the god prays before his statue, and after prayer takes dice, plenty
of which are near Hercules, and throws four on the board. And on every
dice is a certain figure inscribed, which has its interpretation in
a corresponding figure on the board. It is about 30 stades from this
temple of Hercules to Helice by the direct road. And as you go on your
way from the temple of Hercules you come to a perennial river, that has
its outlet into the sea, and rises in an Arcadian mountain, its name
is Crathis as also the name of the mountain, and from this Crathis the
river near Croton in Italy got its name. And near the Crathis in Achaia
was formerly the town Ægæ, which they say was eventually deserted from
its weakness. Homer has mentioned this Ægæ in a speech of Hera,
“They bring you gifts to Helice and Ægæ,”[15]
plainly therefore Poseidon had gifts equally at Helice and Ægæ. And
at no great distance from Crathis is a tomb on the right of the road,
and on it you will find a rather indistinct painting of a man standing
by a horse. And the road from this tomb to what is called Gaius is
30 stades: Gaius is a temple of Earth called the Broad-breasted. The
statue is very ancient. And the woman who becomes priestess remains
henceforth in a state of chastity, and before she must only have been
married once. And they are tested by drinking bull’s blood, whoever of
them is not telling the truth is detected at once and punished. And
if there are several competitors, the woman who obtains most lots is
appointed priestess.
[14] A euphemism for the Eumenides.
[15] Iliad, viii. 203.
CHAPTER XXVI.
And the seaport at Ægira (both town and seaport have the same name) is
72 stades from the temple of Hercules Buraicus. Near the sea there is
nothing notable at Ægira, from the port to the upper part of the town
is 12 stades. In Homer[16] the town is called Hyperesia, the present
name was given to it by the Ionian settlers for the following reason.
A hostile band of Sicyonians was going to invade their land. And they,
not thinking themselves a match for the Sicyonians, collected together
all the goats in the country, and fastened torches to their horns,
and directly night came on lit these torches. And the Sicyonians, who
thought that the allies of the Hyperesians were coming up, and that
this light was the campfires of the allied force, went home again: and
the Hyperesians changed the name of their city because of these goats,
and at the place where the goat that was most handsome and the leader
of the rest had crouched down there they built a temple to Artemis the
Huntress, thinking that this stratagem against the Sicyonians would
not have occurred to them but for Artemis. Not that the name Ægira
prevailed at once over Hyperesia. Even in my time there are still some
who call Oreus in Eubœa by its old name of Hestiæa. At Ægira there
is a handsome temple of Zeus, and his statue in a sitting posture in
Pentelican marble by the Athenian Euclides. The head and fingers and
toes are of ivory, and the rest is wood gilt and richly variegated.
There is also a temple of Artemis, and a statue of the goddess which is
of modern art. A maiden is priestess, till she grows to a marriageable
age. And the old statue that stands there is, according to the
tradition of the people at Ægira, Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon:
and if they state what is correct, the temple must originally have been
built to Iphigenia. There is also a very ancient temple of Apollo,
ancient is the temple, ancient are the gables, ancient is the statue
of the god, which is naked and of great size. Who made it none of the
natives could tell: but whoever has seen the Hercules at Sicyon, would
conjecture that the Apollo at Ægira was by the same hand as that,
namely by Laphaes of Phlius. And there are some statues of Æsculapius
in the temple in a standing position, and of Serapis and Isis apart in
Pentelican marble. And they worship most of all Celestial Aphrodite:
but men must not enter her temple. But into the temple of the Syrian
goddess they may enter on stated days, but only after the accustomed
rites and fasting. I have also seen another building in Ægira, in which
there is a statue of Fortune with the horn of Amalthea, and next it
a Cupid with wings: to symbolize to men that success in love is due
to chance rather than beauty. I am much of the opinion of Pindar in
his Ode that Fortune is one of the Fates, and more powerful than her
sisters. And in this building at Ægira is a statue of a man rather old
and evidently in grief, and 3 women are taking off their bracelets,
and there are 3 young men standing by, and one has a breastplate on.
The tradition about him is that he died after fighting most bravely of
all the people of Ægira against the Achæans, and his brothers brought
home the news of his death, and his sisters are stripping off their
bracelets out of grief at his loss, and the people of the place call
the old man his father Sympathetic, because he is clearly grieving in
the statue.
And there is a direct road from Ægira starting from the temple of Zeus
over the mountains. It is a hilly road, and about 40 stades bring you
to Phelloe, not a very important place, nor inhabited at all when
the Ionians still occupied the land. The neighbourhood of Phelloe is
very good for vine-growing, and in the rocky parts are trees and wild
animals, as wild deer and wild boars. And if any places in Greece are
well situated in respect of abundance of water, Phelloe is one of them.
And there are temples to Dionysus and Artemis, the goddess is in bronze
in the act of taking a dart out of her quiver, and Dionysus’ statue is
decorated with vermilion. As you go down towards the seaport from Ægira
and forward a little there is, on the right of the road, a temple of
Artemis the Huntress, where they say the goat crouched down.
And next to Ægira is Pellene: the people of Pellene are the last of
the Achæans near Sicyon and Argolis. Their town was called according to
their own tradition from Pallas who they say was one of the Titans, but
according to the tradition of the Argives from the Argive Pellen, who
was they say the son of Phorbas and grandson of Triopas. And between
Ægira and Pellene there is a town subject to Sicyon called Donussa,
which was destroyed by the Sicyonians, and which they say is mentioned
by Homer in his Catalogue of Agamemnon’s forces in the line,
“And those who inhabited Hyperesia and steep Donoessa.”
Il. ii. 573.
But when Pisistratus collected the verses of Homer, that had been
scattered about and had to be got together from various quarters,
either he or some of his companions in the task changed the name
inadvertently.[17] The people of Pellene call their seaport
Aristonautæ. To it from Ægira on the sea is a distance of 120 stades,
and it is half this distance to Pellene from the seaport. The name
Aristonautæ was given they say to their seaport because the Argonauts
put in at the harbour.
[16] Iliad, ii. 573.
[17] To _Gonoessa_, the reading to be found in modern texts of Homer.
CHAPTER XXVII.
And the town of Pellene is on a hill which is very steep in its topmost
peak, (indeed precipitous and therefore uninhabited), and is built
upon its more level parts not continuously, but is cut as it were into
two parts by the peak which lies between. And as you approach Pellene
you see a statue of Hermes on the road called Dolios (_wily_), he is
very ready to accomplish the prayers of people: it is a square statue,
the god is bearded and has a hat on his head. On the way to the town
there is also a temple of Athene made of the stone of the country, her
statue is of ivory and gold by they say Phidias, who earlier still made
statues of Athene at Athens and Platæa. And the people of Pellene say
that there is a shrine of Athene deep underground under the base of
her statue, and that the air from it is damp and therefore good for
the ivory. And above the temple of Athene is a grove with a wall built
round it to Artemis called the Saviour, their greatest oath is by her.
No one may enter this grove but the priests, who are chiefly chosen out
of the best local families. And opposite this grove is the temple of
Dionysus called the Lighter, for when they celebrate his festival they
carry torches into his temple by night, and place bowls of wine all
over the city. At Pellene there is also a temple of Apollo Theoxenius,
the statue is of bronze, and they hold games to Apollo called
Theoxenia, and give silver as a prize for victory, and the men of the
district contend. And near the temple of Apollo is one of Artemis,
she is dressed as an archer. And there is a conduit built in the
market-place, their baths have to be of rain-water for there are not
many wells with water to drink below the city, except at a place called
Glyceæ. And there is an old gymnasium chiefly given up to the youths to
practise in, nor can any be enrolled as citizens till they have arrived
at man’s estate. Here is the statue of Promachus of Pellene, the son of
Dryon, who won victories in the pancratium, one at Olympia, three at
the Isthmus, and two at Nemea, and the people of Pellene erected two
statues to him, one at Olympia, and one in the gymnasium, the latter in
stone and not in brass. And it is said that in the war between Corinth
and Pellene Promachus slew most of the enemy opposed to him. It is
said also that he beat at Olympia Polydamas of Scotussa, who contended
a second time at Olympia, after coming home safe from the King of the
Persians. But the Thessalians do not admit that Polydamas was beaten,
and they bring forward to maintain their view the line about Polydamas,
“O Scotoessa, nurse of the invincible Polydamas.”
However the people of Pellene hold Promachus in the highest honour. But
Chæron, though he won two victories in wrestling, and 4 at Olympia,
they do not even care to mention, I think because he destroyed the
constitution of Pellene, receiving a very large bribe from Alexander
the son of Philip to become the tyrant of his country. At Pellene
there is also a temple of Ilithyia, built in the smaller half of the
town. What is called Poseidon’s chapel was originally a parish room,
but is not used in our day, but it still continues to be held sacred to
Poseidon, and is under the gymnasium.
And about 60 stades from Pellene is Mysæum, the temple of Mysian
Demeter. It was built they say by Mysius an Argive, who also received
Demeter into his house according to the tradition of the Argives. There
is a grove at Mysæum of all kinds of trees, and plenty of water springs
up from some fountains. And they keep the feast here to Demeter 7 days,
and on the third day of the feast the men withdraw from the temple, and
the women perform there alone during the night their wonted rites, and
not only are the men banished but even male dogs. And on the following
day, when the men return to the temple, the women and men mutually jest
and banter one another. And at no great distance from Mysæum is the
temple of Æsculapius called Cyros, where men are healed by the god.
Water too flows freely there, and by the largest of the fountains is
a statue of Æsculapius. And some rivers have their rise in the hills
above Pellene: one of them, called Crius from the Titan Crius, flows
in the direction of Ægira.... There is another river Crius which rises
at the mountain Sipylus and is a tributary of the Hermus. And on the
borders between Pellene and Sicyonia is the river Sythas, the last
river in Achaia, which has its outlet in the Sicyonian sea.
BOOK VIII.--ARCADIA.
CHAPTER I.
The parts of Arcadia near Argolis are inhabited by the people of Tegea
and Mantinea. They and the other Arcadians are the inland division of
the Peloponnese. For the Corinthians come first at the Isthmus: and
next them by the sea are the Epidaurians: and by Epidaurus and Trœzen
and Hermion is the Gulf of Argolis, and the maritime parts of Argolis:
and next are the states of the Lacedæmonians, and next comes Messenia,
which touches the sea at Mothone and Pylos and near Cyparissiæ. At
Lechæum the Sicyonians border upon the Corinthians, being next to
Argolis on that side: and next to Sicyon are the Achæans on the
sea-shore, and the other part of the Peloponnese opposite the Echinades
is occupied by Elis. And the borders between Elis and Messenia are by
Olympia and the mouth of the Alpheus, and between Elis and Achaia the
neighbourhood of Dyme. These states that I have mentioned border on the
sea, but the Arcadians live in the interior and are shut off from the
sea entirely: from which circumstance Homer describes them as having
come to Troy not in their own ships but in transports provided by
Agamemnon.[18]
The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first settler in their land.
It is probable that others also came with Pelasgus and that he did not
come alone. For in that case what subjects would he have had? I think
moreover that Pelasgus was eminent for strength and beauty and judgment
beyond others, and that was why he was appointed king over them. This
is the description of him by Asius.
“Divine Pelasgus on the tree-clad hills
Black Earth brought forth, to be of mortal race.”
And Pelasgus when he became king contrived huts that men should be free
from cold and rain, and not be exposed to the fierce sun, and also
garments made of the hides of pigs, such as the poor now use in Eubœa
and Phocis. He was the inventor of these comforts. He too taught people
to abstain from green leaves and grass and roots that were not good to
eat, some even deadly to those who eat them. He discovered also that
the fruit of some trees was good, especially acorns. And several since
Pelasgus’ time have adopted this diet, so much so that the Pythian
Priestess, when she forbade the Lacedæmonians to touch Arcadia, did
so in the following words, “Many acorn-eating warriors are there in
Arcadia, who will keep you off. I tell you the truth, I bear you no
grudge.”
And it was they say during the reign of Pelasgus that Arcadia was
called Pelasgia.
[18] Iliad, ii. 612.