Description of Greece

There is also in this district a hill to the east, and on it a temple of Artemis Huntress this too was dedicated by Aristodemus. To the right of the Huntress is a precinct. Here there is a sanctuary of Asclepius, with images of the god and of Health, and a little lower down there are gods, also of square shape, surnamed Workers, Athena Worker and Apollo, God of Streets. To Hermes, Heracles and Eileithyia are attached traditions from the poems of Homer: that Hermes is the minister of Zeus and leads the souls of the departed down to Hades,[*](Hom. Od. 24.1, Hom. Od. 24.10, Hom. Od. 24.l00.) and that Heracles accomplished many difficult tasks;[*](Hom. Il. 8.362 foll.) Eileithyia, he says in the Iliad, cares for the pangs of women.[*](Hom. Il. 16.187 and Hom. Il. 19.103.)

Under this hill there is another sanctuary of Boy Asclepius. His image is upright and about a cubit in height, that of Apollo is seated on a throne and is not less than six feet high. Here are also kept bones, too big for those of a human being, about which the story ran that they were those of one of the giants mustered by Hopladamus to fight for Rhea, as my story will relate hereafter. Near this sanctuary is a spring, the water flowing down from which is received by the Helisson.

Megalopolis was founded by the Arcadians with the utmost enthusiasm amidst the highest hopes of the Greeks, but it has lost all its beauty and its old prosperity, being to-day for the most part in ruins. I am not in the least surprised, as I know that heaven is always willing something new, and likewise that all things, strong or weak, increasing or decreasing, are being changed by Fortune, who drives them with imperious necessity according to her whim.

For Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and Nineveh, where was the royal palace of the Assyrians, are utterly ruined and desolate; while Boeotian Thebes, once deemed worthy to be the head of the Greek people, why, its name includes only the acropolis and its few inhabitants. Of the opulent places in the ancient world, Egyptian Thebes and Minyan Orchomenus are now less prosperous than a private individual of moderate means, while Delos, once the common market of Greece, has no Delian inhabitant, but only the men sent by the Athenians to guard the sanctuary.

At Babylon the sanctuary of Belus still is left, but of the Babylon that was the greatest city of its time under the sun nothing remains but the wall. The case of Tiryns in the Argolid is the same. These places have been reduced by heaven to nothing. But the city of Alexander in Egypt, and that of Seleucus on the Orontes, that were founded but yesterday, have reached their present size and prosperity because fortune favours them.

The following incident proves the might of fortune to be greater and more marvellous than is shown by the disasters and prosperity of cities. No long sail from Lemnos was once an island Chryse, where, it is said, Philoctetes met with his accident from the water-snake. But the waves utterly overwhelmed it, and Chryse sank and disappeared in the depths. Another island called Hiera (Sacred) . . . was not during this time. So temporary and utterly weak are the fortunes of men.

As you go from Megalopolis to Messene, after advancing about seven stades, there stands on the left of the highway a sanctuary of goddesses. They call the goddesses themselves, as well as the district around the sanctuary, Maniae (Madnesses). In my view this is a surname of the Eumenides; in fact they say that it was here that madness overtook Orestes as punishment for shedding his mother's blood.

Not far from the sanctuary is a mound of earth, of no great size, surmounted by a finger made of stone; the name, indeed, of the mound is the Tomb of the Finger. Here, it is said, Orestes on losing his wits bit off one finger of one of his hands. Adjoining this place is another, called Ace (Remedies) because in it Orestes was cured of his malady. Here too there is a sanctuary for the Eumenides.

The story is that, when these goddesses were about to put Orestes out of his mind, they appeared to him black; but when he had bitten off his finger they seemed to him again to be white and he recovered his senses at the sight. So he offered a sin-offering to the black goddesses to avert their wrath, while to the white deities he sacrificed a thank-offering. It is customary to sacrifice to the Graces also along with the Eumenides. Near to the place called Ace is another . . . a sanctuary called . . . because here Orestes cut off his hair on coming to his senses.

Historians of Peloponnesian antiquities say that what Clytaemnestra's Furies did to Orestes in Arcadia took place before the trial at the Areopagus; that his accuser was not Tyndareus, who no longer lived, but Perilaus, who asked for vengeance for the mother's murder in that he was a cousin of Clytaemnestra. For Perilaus, they say, was a son of Icarius, to whom afterwards daughters also were born.

The road from Maniae to the Alpheius is roughly fifteen stades long. At this point the river Gatheatas falls into the Alpheius, and before this the Carnion flows into the Gatheatas. The source of the Carnion is in Aegytian territory beneath the sanctuary of Apollo Cereatas; that of the Gatheatas is at Gatheae in Cromitian territory.

The Cromitian territory is about forty stades up from the Alpheius, and in it the ruins of the city Cromi have not entirely disappeared. From Cromi it is about twenty stades to Nymphas, which is well supplied with water and covered with trees. From Nymphas it is twenty stades to the Hermaeum, where is the boundary between Messenia and Megalopolis. Here they have made a Hermes also on a slab.

This road leads to Messene, and there is another leading from Megalopolis to Carnasium in Messenia. The first thing you come to on the latter road is the Alpheius at the place where it is joined by the Malus and the Scyrus, whose waters have already united. From this point keeping the Malus on the right after about thirty stades you will cross it and ascend along a rather steep road to a place called Phaedrias.

About fifteen stades distant from Phaedrias is an Hermaeum called “by the Mistress"; it too forms a boundary between Messenia and Megalopolis. There are small images of the Mistress and Demeter; likewise of Hermes and Heracles. I am of opinion that the wooden image also, made for Heracles by Daedalus, stood here on the borders of Messenia and Arcadia.

The road from Megalopolis to Lacedaemon is thirty stades long at the Alpheius. After this you will travel beside a river Theius, which is a tributary of the Alpheius, and some forty stades from the Alpheius leaving the Theius on the left you will come to Phalaesiae. This place is twenty stades away from the Hermaeum at Belemina.

The Arcadians say that Belemina belonged of old to Arcadia but was severed from it by the Lacedaemonians. This account struck me as improbable on various grounds, chiefly because the Thebans, I think, would never have allowed the Arcadians to suffer even this loss, if they could have brought about restitution with justice.

There are also roads from Megalopolis leading to the interior of Arcadia; to Methydrium it is one hundred and seventy stades, and thirteen stades from Megalopolis is a place called Scias, where are ruins of a sanctuary of Artemis Sciatis, said to have been built by Aristodemus the tyrant. About ten stades from here are a few memorials of the city Charisiae, and the journey from Charisiae to Tricoloni is another ten stades.