Description of Greece

On the southern slope of the mountain once stood Sumetia. On this mountain is what is called the Meeting of the Three Ways, whence the Mantineans fetched the bones of Arcas, the son of Callisto, at the bidding of the Delphic oracle. There are still left ruins of Maenalus itself: traces of a temple of Athena, one race-course for athletes and one for horses. Mount Maenalus is held to be especially sacred to Pan, so that those who dwell around it say that they can actually hear him playing on his pipes.

From the sanctuary of the Mistress to the city of Megalopolis it is forty stades. From Megalopolis to the stream of the Alpheius is half this distance. After crossing the river it is two stades from the Alpheius to the ruins of Macareae, from these to the ruins of Daseae seven stades, and seven again from Daseae to the hill called Acacesian Hill.

At the foot of this hill used to be a city Acacesium, and even to-day there is on the hill a stone image of Acacesian Hermes, the story of the Arcadians about it being that here the child Hermes was reared, and that Acacus the son of Lycaon became his foster-father. The Theban legend is different, and the people of Tanagra, again, have a legend at variance with the Theban.

From Acacesium it is four stades to the sanctuary of the Mistress. First in this place is a temple of Artemis Leader, with a bronze image, holding torches, which I conjecture to be about six feet high. From this place there is an entrance into the sacred enclosure of the Mistress. As you go to the temple there is a portico on the right, with reliefs of white marble on the wall. On the first relief are wrought Fates and Zeus surnamed Guide of Fate, and on the second Heracles wresting a tripod from Apollo. What I learned about the story of the two latter I will tell if I get as far as an account of Delphi in my history of Phocis.

In the portico by the Mistress there is, between the reliefs I have mentioned, a tablet with descriptions[*](Either in writing or in pictures—probably the former. See Frazer's note.) of the mysteries. On the third relief are nymphs and Pans; on the fourth is Polybius, the son of Lycortas. On the latter is also an inscription, declaring that Greece would never have fallen at all, if she had obeyed Polybius in everything, and when she met disaster her only help came from him. In front of the temple is an altar to Demeter and another to the Mistress, after which is one of the Great Mother.

The actual images of the goddesses, Mistress and Demeter, the throne on which they sit, along with the footstool under their feet, are all made out of one piece of stone. No part of the drapery, and no part of the carvings about the throne, is fastened to another stone by iron or cement, but the whole is from one block. This stone was not brought in by them, but they say that in obedience to a dream they dug up the earth within the enclosure and so found it. The size of both images just about corresponds to the image of the Mother at Athens.