Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER V.

And in process of time Aristotimus, the son of Damaretus, the son of Etymon, obtained the sovereignty at Elis, partly through the assistance of Antigonus the son of Demetrius, who was king of the Macedonians. But when he had reigned only six months, Chilon and Hellanicus and Lampis and Cylon rose up against him and deposed him; and Cylon slew him with his own hand when he had fled as suppliant to the altar of Zeus Soter. These are the chief wars the people of Elis took part in, just to glance at them briefly in the present portion of my work.

Among the wonders of Elis are the flax, which grows here alone and in no other part of Greece, and also the fact that, though over the borders mares bear foals to he-asses, it is never so in Elis. And this phenomenon is they say the result of a curse. The flax in Elis in respect of thinness is not inferior to the flax of the Hebrews, but is not as yellow.

And as you go from the district of Elis there is a place by the sea called Samicum, and beyond it on the right is the district called Triphylia, and the city Lepreus in it. The people of Lepreus think they belong properly to Arcadia, but it is manifest they were from time immemorial subject to Elis. For the victors at Olympia that came from Lepreus were pronounced by the herald men of Elis. And Aristophanes has described Lepreus as a city in Elis. One way to Lepreus from Samicum is by leaving the river Aniger on the left, and a second is from Olympia, and a third from Elis, and the longest of them is only a day’s journey. The city got its name they say from Lepreus the son of Pyrgeus its founder. There is a tradition that Lepreus had an eating contest with Hercules, each killed an ox at the same time and cooked it for dinner, and (as he had betted) he was quite a match for Hercules in eating. But he had the hardihood afterwards to challenge Hercules to a contest in arms. And they say he was killed in that contest and buried at Phigalia, however his sepulchre there is not shewn. And I have heard some who claim that their city was founded by Leprea the daughter of Pyrgeus. Others say that the inhabitants of this region were the first lepers, and that the city got its name from this misfortune of its inhabitants. And the people of Lepreus say that in their city they once had a temple of Leucæan Zeus, and the tomb of Lycurgus the son of Aleus, and also the tomb of Caucon. The last had they say as a design over it a man with a lyre. But in my time there is no remarkable tomb there, nor any temple of the gods except one of Demeter: built of unbaked brick, and containing no statue. And not far from the city Lepreus is a spring called Arene: it got this name according to tradition from the wife of Aphareus.

And as you return to Samicum, and go through it, the river Aniger has its outlet to the sea. The flow of this river is often impeded by violent winds: for they blow the sand from the shore into it and dam up the flow of the river. Whenever then this sand becomes soaked with water, (outside by the sea inside by the river), it becomes a very dangerous place for carts and carriages and even for an active man to ford. This river Aniger rises in the Arcadian mountain Lapithus, and the water has an unpleasant smell from its source. Before receiving its tributary the Acidas it is too fetid to have any fish whatever, and after its confluence with the Acidas, though it has fish that come into its waters from that tributary, they are no longer eatable, which they are when caught in the Acidas. That the ancient name of the river Acidas was Iardanus I should not myself have conjectured, but I was so informed by an Ephesian. The unpleasant smell of the Aniger comes I believe from the soil through which the river flows, as is certainly the case with those rivers beyond Ionia, whose exhalations are deadly to man. Some of the Greeks say that Chiron, others that Pylenor the Centaur, was wounded by Hercules, and fled and washed his sore in this river, and that it was from the Hydra’s poison (in which Hercules’ arrow had been dipped) that the Aniger got its unpleasant smell. Others refer this condition of the river to Melampus the son of Amythaon, and to the fact that the purifications of the daughters of Prœtus were thrown into it.

There is at Samicum a cave, not far from the river, called the cave of the Nymphs of the Aniger. Whoever goes into it suffering from either black or white leprosy, must first of all pray to these Nymphs and promise sacrifice to them, and afterwards wipe clean the diseased parts of his body. If he next swims across the river he leaves in the water his foul disease, and comes out of the river sound and with his skin uniformly clear.