Next to the temple of Poseidon you will come to a place full of oak
trees called Pelagos; there is a road from Mantinea to Tegea through
these oak trees. And the boundary between the districts of Mantinea
and Tegea is the round altar on the highroad. And if you should turn
to the left from the temple of Poseidon, in about five stades you will
come to the tombs of the daughters of Pelias. The people of Mantinea
say they dwelt here to avoid the vituperations which came upon them
for the death of their father. For as soon as Medea came to Iolcos she
forthwith plotted against Pelias, really working for Jason’s interest,
while ostensibly hostile to him. She told the daughters of Pelias
that, if they liked, she could make their father a young man instead
of an old man. So she slew a ram and boiled his flesh with herbs in a
caldron, and she brought the old ram out of the caldron in the shape
of a young man alive. After this she took Pelias to boil and cut him
up, but his daughters got hardly enough of him to take to burial. This
compelled them to go and live in Arcadia, and when they died their
sepulchres were raised here. No poet has given their names so far as I
know, but Mico the painter has written under their portraits the names
Asteropea and Antinoe.
And the place called Phœzon is about 20 stades from these tombs, where
is a tomb with a stone base, rising up somewhat from the ground.
The road is very narrow at this place, and they say it is the tomb
of Areithous, who was called Corynetes from the club which he used
in battle. As you go about 30 stades along the road from Mantinea
to Pallantium, the oak plantation called Pelagos extends along the
highroad, and here the cavalry of the Mantineans and Athenians fought
against the Bœotian cavalry. And the Mantineans say that Epaminondas
was killed here by Machærion a Mantinean, but the Lacedæmonians say
that the Machærion who killed Epaminondas was a Spartan. But the
Athenian account, corroborated by the Thebans, is that Epaminondas was
mortally wounded by Gryllus: and this corresponds with the painting of
the action at Mantinea. The Mantineans also seem to have given Gryllus
a public funeral, and erected to him his statue on a pillar where he
fell as the bravest man in the allied army: whereas Machærion, though
the Lacedæmonians mention him, had no special honours paid to him as a
brave man, either at Sparta or at Mantinea. And when Epaminondas was
wounded they removed him yet alive out of the line of battle. And for a
time he kept his hand on his wound, and gasped for breath, and looked
earnestly at the fight, and the place where he kept so looking they
called ever after Scope, (_Watch_), but when the battle was over then
he took his hand from the wound and expired, and they buried him on the
field of battle. And there is a pillar on his tomb, and a shield above
it with a dragon as its device. The dragon is intended to intimate that
Epaminondas was one of those who are called the Sparti, the seed of
the dragon’s teeth. And there are two pillars on his tomb, one ancient
with a Bœotian inscription, and the other erected by the Emperor Adrian
with an inscription by him upon it. As to Epaminondas one might praise
him as one of the most famous Greek generals for talent in war, indeed
second to none. For the Lacedæmonian and Athenian generals were aided
by the ancient renown of their states and the spirit of their soldiers:
but the Thebans were dejected and used to obey other Greek states when
Epaminondas in a short time put them into a foremost position.
Epaminondas had been warned by the oracle at Delphi before this to
beware of Pelagos. Taking this word in its usual meaning of the sea
he was careful not to set foot on a trireme or transport: but Apollo
evidently meant this oak plantation Pelagos and not the sea. Places
bearing the same name deceived Hannibal the Carthaginian later on, and
the Athenians still earlier. For Hannibal had an oracle from Ammon
that he would die and be buried in Libyssa. Accordingly he hoped that
he would destroy the power of Rome, and return home to Libya and die
there in old age. But when Flaminius the Roman made all diligence to
take him alive, he went to the court of Prusias as a suppliant, and
being rejected by him mounted his horse, and in drawing his sword
wounded his finger. And he had not gone on many stades when a fever
from the wound came on him, and he died the third day after, and the
place where he died was called Libyssa by the people of Nicomedia.
The oracle at Dodona also told the Athenians to colonize Sicily. Now
not far from Athens is a small hill called Sicily. And they, not
understanding that it was this Sicily that the oracle referred to, were
induced to go on expeditions beyond their borders and to engage in the
fatal war against Syracuse. And one might find other similar cases to
these.