CHAPTER VI.
On the high road, after crossing the Aniger in the direction of Olympia, there is at no great distance on the right an eminence, and on it a town called Samia above Samicum. This town[67] they say was made into a sort of offensive fortress against the Arcadians by Polysperchon, an Ætolian.
As to the ruins of Arene, none either of the Messenians or people of Elis could give me a clear account. As their explanations are different those who like to conjecture are at liberty to do so. The most credible account seems to me that of those who think that the ancient name of Samicum earlier than the time of the heroes was Arene. And these quote the lines in the Iliad.
“There is a river Minyeïus,
That flows into the sea near to Arene.”
Iliad, xi 722, 723.
And these ruins of Arene are very near the Aniger. One might have doubted about Samicum having been called Arene, only the Arcadians admit that the ancient name of the river Aniger was Minyeïus. And one would feel sure that the river Neda near the sea was the boundary between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heraclidæ to the Peloponnese.
And leaving the Aniger, and passing through a district generally sandy and full of wild pine-trees, somewhat back to the left you will see the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was one of the towns of Triphylia: and in the war between the people of Elis and Pisa the people of Scillus openly allied themselves to the people of Pisa, and in return the men of Elis dispossessed them from Scillus. But the Lacedæmonians afterwards sliced Scillus from Elis, and gave it to Xenophon (the son of Gryllus), who was at that time exiled from Athens. He was banished by the Athenians for joining Cyrus (who hated their democracy) against the king of the Persians (who was their friend): for when Cyrus was at Sardis he gave Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedæmonians some money for their fleet. This is why Xenophon was banished, and he lived at Scillus and built a temple and grove to Ephesian Artemis. And Scillus affords good hunting of wild animals, as wild boars and deer. And the river Selinus flows through the district. And the antiquarians of Elis say that the people of Elis recovered Scillus, and that Xenophon was tried in the Olympian council for receiving Scillus from the Lacedæmonians, but was acquitted and allowed to continue there scot free. And at some little distance from the temple they show a tomb, and there is an effigy on the tomb in Pentelican marble, which the people of the place say is Xenophon.
On the road to Olympia from Scillus, before crossing the Alpheus, is a mountain lofty and precipitous which is called Typæum. From this mountain it is the custom to hurl all women of Elis who are detected as competitors in the Olympian contests, or who merely cross the Alpheus on forbidden days. Not that any one ever yet was so detected except Callipatira, whose name according to some traditions was Pherenice. She after the death of her husband dressed herself up like an athlete, and brought her son as a combatant to Olympia. And Pisirodus her son having been victorious, Callipatira in leaping over the fence which parted the athletes from the spectators, exposed her person, and though her sex was detected they let her go without punishment out of respect to her father and brothers and son, who had all been victors at Olympia, but they passed a law that henceforth all athletes should come to the contests naked.