And a little higher up is the circuit of the walls of Lycosura, which
contains a few inhabitants. It is the oldest of the towns of the earth
either on the mainland or in islands, and the first the sun saw, and
all mankind made it their model for building towns.
And on the left of the temple of Despœna is Mount Lycæus, which some
of the Arcadians call Olympus and others the Sacred Hill. They say
Zeus was reared on this mountain: and there is a spot on it called
Cretea on the left of the grove of Parrhasian Apollo, and the Arcadians
maintain that this was the Crete where Zeus was reared, and not the
island of Crete as the Cretans hold. And the names of the Nymphs, by
whom they say Zeus was brought up, were (they say) Thisoa and Neda and
Hagno. Thisoa gave her name to a town in Parrhasia, and in my time
there is a village called Thisoa in the district of Megalopolis, and
Neda gave her name to the river Neda, and Hagno gave her name to the
spring on Mount Lycæus, which like the river Ister has generally as
much water in summer as in winter. But should a drought prevail for any
length of time, so as to be injurious to the fruits of the earth and to
trees, then the priest of Lycæan Zeus prays to the water and performs
the wonted sacrifice, and lowers a branch of oak into the spring just
on the surface, and when the water is stirred up a steam rises like
a mist, and after a little interval the mist becomes a cloud, and
collecting other clouds soon causes rain to fall upon Arcadia. There
is also on Mount Lycæus a temple of Pan and round it a grove of trees,
and a Hippodrome in front of it, where in old times they celebrated the
Lycæan games. There are also here the bases of some statues, though the
statues are no longer there: and an elegiac couplet on one of the bases
says it is the statue of Astyanax who was an Arcadian.
Mount Lycæus among other remarkable things has the following. There
is an enclosure sacred to Lycæan Zeus into which men may not enter,
and if any one violates this law he will not live more than a year. It
is also still stated that inside this enclosure men and beasts alike
have no shadow, and therefore when any beast flees into this enclosure
the hunter cannot follow it up, but remaining outside and looking at
the beast sees no shadow falling from it. As long indeed as the Sun
is in Cancer there is no shadow from trees or living things at Syene
in Ethiopia, but this sacred enclosure on Mount Lycæus is the same in
reference to shadows during every period of the year.
There is on the highest ridge of the mountain a mound of earth, the
altar of Lycæan Zeus, from which most of the Peloponnese is visible:
and in front of this altar there are two pillars facing east, and
some golden eagles upon them of very ancient date. On this altar they
sacrifice to Lycæan Zeus secretly: it would not be agreeable to me to
pry too curiously into the rites, let them be as they are and always
have been.
On the eastern part of the mountain is a temple of Parrhasian Apollo,
also called Pythian Apollo. During the annual festival of the god they
sacrifice in the market-place a boar to Apollo the Helper, and after
the sacrifice they convey the victim to the temple of Parrhasian Apollo
with fluteplaying and solemn procession, and cut off the thighs and
burn them, and consume the flesh of the victim on the spot. Such is
their annual custom.
And on the north side of Mount Lycæus is the district of Thisoa: the
men who live here hold the Nymph Thisoa in highest honour. Through this
district several streams flow that fall into the Alpheus, as Mylaon and
Nus and Achelous and Celadus and Naliphus. There are two other rivers
of the same name but far greater fame than this Achelous in Arcadia,
one that flows through Acarnania and Ætolia till it reaches the islands
of the Echinades, which Homer has called in the Iliad the king of all
rivers,[41] the other the Achelous flowing from Mount Sipylus, which
river and mountain he has associated with the legend of Niobe.[42] The
third Achelous is this one on Mount Lycæus.
To the right of Lycosura are the hills called Nomia, on which is a
temple of Pan Nomius on a spot called Melpea, so called they say from
the piping of Pan there. The simplest explanation why the hills were
called Nomia is that Pan had his pastures there, but the Arcadians say
they were called after a Nymph of that name.