And next to Stymphelus comes Alea a town in the Argolic league, founded
they say by Aleus the son of Aphidas. There are temples here of
Ephesian Artemis and Alean Athene, and a temple and statue of Dionysus.
They celebrate annually the festival of Dionysus called Scieria, in
which according to an oracle from Delphi the women are flogged, as the
Spartan boys are flogged at the temple of Orthia.
I have shewn in my account of Orchomenus that the straight road is by
the ravine, and that there is another on the left of the lake. And
in the plain of Caphyæ there is a reservoir, by which the water from
the territory of Orchomenus is kept in, so as not to harm the fertile
district. And within this reservoir some other water, in volume nearly
as large as a river, is absorbed in the ground and comes up again at
what is called Nasi, near a village called Rheunos, and it forms there
the perennial river called Tragus. The town gets its name clearly from
Cepheus the son of Aleus, but the name Caphyæ has prevailed through the
Arcadian dialect. And the inhabitants trace their origin to Attica,
they say they were expelled by Ægeus from Athens and fled to Arcadia,
and supplicated Cepheus to allow them to dwell there. The town is at
the end of the plain at the foot of some not very high hills, and has
temples of Poseidon and of Cnacalesian Artemis, so called from the
mountain Cnacalus where the goddess has annual rites. A little above
the town is a well and by it a large and beautiful plane-tree, which
they call Menelaus’, for they say that when he was mustering his army
against Troy he came here and planted it by the well, and in our day
they call the well as well as the plane-tree Menelaus’. And if we may
credit the traditions of the Greeks about old trees still alive and
flourishing, the oldest is the willow in the temple of Hera at Samos,
and next it the oak at Dodona, and the olive in the Acropolis and at
Delos, and the Syrians would assign the third place for its antiquity
to their laurel, and of all others this plane-tree is the most ancient.
About a stade from Caphyæ is the place Condylea, where was a grove
and temple in olden times to Artemis of Condylea. But the goddess
changed her title they say for the following reason. Some children
playing about the temple, how many is not recorded, came across a rope,
and bound it round the neck of the statue, and said that they would
strangle Artemis. And the people of Caphyæ when they found out what
had been done by the children stoned them, and in consequence of this
a strange disorder came upon the women, who prematurely gave birth
to dead children, till the Pythian Priestess told them to bury the
children who had been stoned, and annually to bestow on them funeral
rites, for they had not been slain justly. The people of Caphyæ obeyed
the oracle and still do, and ever since call the goddess, (this they
also refer to the oracle), Apanchomene (_strangled_). When you have
ascended from Caphyæ seven stades you descend to Nasi, and fifty
stades further is the river Ladon. And when you have crossed it you
will come to the oak-coppice Soron, between Argeathæ and Lycuntes and
Scotane. Soron is on the road to Psophis, and it and all the Arcadian
oak-coppices shelter various wild animals, as boars and bears, and
immense tortoises, from which you could make lyres as large as those
made from the Indian tortoise. And at the end of Soron are the ruins of
a village called Paus, and at no great distance is what is called Siræ,
the boundary between the districts of Clitor and Psophis.