And after the death of Lycurgus Echemus, the son of Aeropus the son of
Cepheus the son of Aleus, became king of the Arcadians. In his reign
the Dorians, who were returning to the Peloponnese under the leadership
of Hyllus the son of Hercules, were beaten in battle by the Achæans
near the Isthmus of Corinth, and Echemus slew Hyllus in single combat
being challenged by him. For this seems more probable to me now than
my former account, in which I wrote that Orestes was at this time king
of the Achæans, and that it was during his reign that Hyllus ventured
his descent upon the Peloponnese. And according to the later tradition
it would seem that Timandra, the daughter of Tyndareus, married
Echemus after he had killed Hyllus. And Agapenor, the son of Ancæus
and grandson of Lycurgus, succeeded Echemus and led the Arcadians to
Troy. And after the capture of Ilium the storm which fell on the Greeks
as they were sailing home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to
Cyprus, and he became the founder of Paphos, and erected the temple of
Aphrodite in that town, the goddess having been previously honoured by
the people of Cyprus in the place called Golgi. And afterwards Laodice,
the daughter of Agapenor, sent to Tegea a robe for Athene Alea, and the
inscription on it gives the nationality of Laodice.
“This is the robe which Laodice gave to her own Athene, sending it
from sacred Cyprus to her spacious fatherland.”
And as Agapenor did not get home from Ilium, the kingdom devolved
upon Hippothous, the son of Cercyon, the son of Agamedes, the son of
Stymphelus. Of him they record nothing notable, but that he transferred
the seat of the kingdom from Tegea to Trapezus. And Æpytus the son of
Hippothous succeeded his father, and Orestes the son of Agamemnon,
in obedience to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, migrated to Arcadia
from Mycenæ. And Æpytus the son of Hippothous presuming to go into the
temple of Poseidon at Mantinea, (though men were not allowed to enter
it either then or now,) was struck blind on his entrance, and died not
long afterwards.
And during the reign of Cypselus, his son and successor, the Dorians
returned to the Peloponnese in ships, landing near the Promontory of
Rhium, not as three generations earlier attempting to return by way
of the Isthmus of Corinth, and Cypselus, hearing of their return,
gave his daughter in marriage to Cresphontes, the only unmarried son
of Aristomachus, and thus won him over to his interests, and he and
the Arcadians had now nothing to fear. And the son and successor of
Cypselus was Olæas, who, in junction with the Heraclidæ from Lacedæmon
and Argos, restored his sister’s son Æpytus to Messene. The next king
was Bucolion, the next Phialus, who deprived Phigalus, (the founder
of Phigalia, and the son of Lycaon), of the honour of giving his name
to that town, by changing its name to Phialia after his own name,
though the new name did not universally prevail. And during the reign
of Simus, the son of Phialus, the old statue of Black Demeter that
belonged to the people of Phigalia was destroyed by fire. This was a
portent that not long afterwards Simus himself would end his life.
And during the reign of Pompus his successor the Æginetans sailed to
Cyllene for purposes of commerce. There they put their goods on beasts
of burden and took them into the interior of Arcadia. For this good
service Pompus highly honoured the Æginetans, and out of friendship
to them gave the name of Æginetes to his son and successor: who was
succeeded by his son Polymestor during whose reign Charillus and
the Lacedæmonians first invaded the district round Tegea, and were
beaten in battle by the men of Tegea, and also by the women who
put on armour, and Charillus and his army were taken prisoners. We
shall give a further account of them when we come to Tegea. And as
Polymestor had no children Æchmis succeeded, the son of Briacas, and
nephew of Polymestor. Briacas was the son of Æginetes but younger
than Polymestor. And it was during the reign of Æchmis that the war
broke out between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians. The Arcadians had
always had a kindly feeling towards the Messenians, and now they openly
fought against the Lacedæmonians in conjunction with Aristodemus king
of Messenia. And Aristocrates, the son of Æchmis, acted insolently to
his fellow-countrymen in various ways, but his great impiety to the
gods I cannot pass over. There is a temple of Artemis Hymnia on the
borders between Orchomenus and Mantinea. She was worshipped of old by
all the Arcadians. And her priestess at this time was a maiden. And
Aristocrates, as she resisted all his attempts to seduce her, and fled
at last for refuge to the altar near the statue of Artemis, defiled
her there. And when his wickedness was reported to the Arcadians they
stoned him to death, and their custom was thenceforward changed.
For instead of a maiden as priestess of Artemis they had a woman
who was tired of the company of men. His son was Hicetas, who had a
son Aristocrates, of the same name as his grandfather, and who met
with the same fate, for he too was stoned to death by the Arcadians,
who detected him receiving bribes from Lacedæmon, and betraying the
Messenians at the great reverse they met with at the Great Trench. This
crime was the reason why all the descendants of Cypselus were deposed
from the sovereignty of Arcadia.