And the statue now at Tegea of Athene, called Hippia by the Manthurii,
because (according to their tradition) in the fight between the gods
and the giants the goddess drove the chariot of Enceladus, though among
the other Greeks and Peloponnesians the title Alea has prevailed, was
taken from the Manthurii. On one side of the statue of Athene stands
Æsculapius, on the other Hygiea in Pentelican marble, both by the
Parian Scopas. And the most notable votive offerings in the temple are
the hide of the Calydonian boar, which is rotten with lapse of time
and nearly devoid of hair, and some fetters hung up partly destroyed
by rust, which the captives of the Lacedæmonians wore when they dug in
the district of Tegea. And there is the bed of Athene, and an effigy
of Auge to imitate a painting, and the armour of Marpessa, called the
Widow, a woman of Tegea, of whom I shall speak hereafter. She was a
priestess of Athene when a girl, how long I do not know but not after
she grew to womanhood. And the altar they say was made for the goddess
by Melampus the son of Amythaon: and on the altar are representations
of Rhea and the Nymph Œnoe with Zeus still a babe, and on each side
4 Nymphs, on the one side Glauce and Neda and Thisoa and Anthracia,
and on the other Ida and Hagno and Alcinoe and Phrixa. There are also
statues of the Muses and Mnemosyne.
And not far from the temple is a mound of earth, constituting a
race-course, where they hold games which they call Aleæa from Athene
Alea, and Halotia because they took most of the Lacedæmonians alive
in the battle. And there is a spring towards the north of the temple,
near which they say Auge was violated by Hercules, though their legend
differs from that of Hecatæus about her. And about 3 stades from this
spring is the temple of Hermes called Æpytus.
At Tegea there is also a temple to Athene Poliatis, which once every
year the priest enters. They call it the temple of Protection, and
say that it was a boon of Athene to Cepheus, the son of Aleus, that
Tegea should never be captured, and they say that the goddess cut off
one of the locks of Medusa, and gave it him as a protection for the
city. They have also the following legend about Artemis Hegemone.
Aristomelidas the ruler at Orchomenus in Arcadia, being enamoured of a
maiden of Tegea, got her somehow or other into his power, and committed
the charge of her to one Chronius. And she before being conducted to
the tyrant slew herself in modesty and fear. And Artemis stirred up
Chronius in a dream against Aristomelidas, and he slew him and fled to
Tegea and built there a temple to Artemis.