Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XLIV.

Next Corœbus is buried Orsippus, who, though the athletes according to olden custom had girdles round their loins, ran naked at Olympia in the race and won the prize. And they say that he afterwards as general cut off a slice of his neighbours’ territory. But I think at Olympia he dropped his girdle on purpose, knowing that it is easier for a man to run naked than with a girdle on. And as you descend from the market-place by the way called Straight, there is on the right hand a temple of Protecting Apollo: you can find it by turning a little out of the way. And there is in it a statue of Apollo well worth seeing, and an Artemis and Leto, and other statues, and Leto and her sons by Praxiteles. And there is in the ancient gymnasium, near the gates called Nymphades, a stone in shape like a small pyramid. This they call Apollo Carinus, and there is here a temple to Ilithyia also. Such are the notable things the city contains. And as you descend to the dockyard, which is still called Nisæa, is a temple of Demeter the Wool-bearer. Several explanations are given of this title, among them that those who first reared sheep in this country gave her that name. And one would conjecture that the roof had fallen from the temple by the lapse of time. There is here also a citadel called Nisæa. And as you descend from it there is near the sea a monument of Lelex the king, who is said to have come from Egypt, and to have been the son of Poseidon by Libye the daughter of Epaphus. There is an island too near Nisæa of no great size called Minoa. Here the navy of the Cretans was moored in the war with Nisus. And the mountainous part of Megaris is on the borders of Bœotia, and contains two towns, Pagæ and Ægosthena. As you go to Pagæ, if you turn a little off from the regular road, there is shewn the rock which has arrows fixed in it everywhere, into which the Medes once shot in the night. At Pagæ too well worth seeing is a brazen statue of Artemis under the title of Saviour, in size and shape like the statues of the goddess at Megara. There is also here a hero-chapel of Ægialeus the son of Adrastus. He, when the Argives marched against Thebes the second time, was killed in the first battle at Glisas, and his relations carried him to Pagæ in Megaris, and buried him there, and the hero-chapel is still called after his name. And at Ægosthena is a temple of Melampus the son of Amythaon, and a man of no great size is carved on a pillar. And they sacrifice to Melampus and have a festival to him every year. But they say that he has no prophetic powers either in dreams or in any other way. And I also heard at Erenea a village of Megaris, that Autonoe the daughter of Cadmus, excessively grieving at the death of Actæon, and the circumstances of it which tradition records, and the general misfortunes of her father’s house, migrated there from Thebes: and her tomb is in that village.

And as you go from Megara to Corinth there are several tombs, and among them that of the Samian flute-player Telephanes. And they say that this tomb was erected by Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip the son of Amyntas. And there is a monument of Car the son of Phoroneus, originally only a mound of earth, but afterwards in consequence of the oracle it was beautified with a shell-like stone. And the Megarians are the only Greeks who possess this peculiar kind of stone, and many things in their city are made of it. It is very white, and softer than other stone, and seashells are everywhere in it. Such is this kind of stone. And the road, called the Scironian road after Sciron, is so called because Sciron, when he was commander in chief of the Megarians, first made it a road for travellers according to tradition. And the Emperor Adrian made it so wide and convenient that two chariots could drive abreast.

Now there are traditions about the rocks which project in the narrow part of the road; with regard to the Molurian rock, that Ino threw herself into the sea from it with Melicerta, the younger of her sons: for Learchus the oldest was killed by his father. Athamas also is said to have acted in the same way when mad, and to have exhibited ungovernable rage to Ino and her children, thinking that the famine which befell the Orchomenians, which also apparently caused the death of Phrixus, was not the visitation of God, but a stepmother’s contrivance against them all. So she to escape him threw herself and her boy Melicerta into the sea from the Molurian rock. And the boy, being carried it is said by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth, had various honours paid to him under the name of Palæmon, and the Isthmian games were celebrated in his honour. This Molurian rock they consider sacred to Leucothea and Palæmon, but the rocks next to it they consider accursed, because Sciron lived near them, who threw into the sea all strangers that chanced to come there. And a tortoise used to swim about near these rocks, so as to devour those that were thrown in: these sea tortoises are like land tortoises, except in size and the shape of their feet which are like those of seals. But the whirligig of time which brought on Sciron punishment for all this, for he himself was thrown by Theseus into the same sea. And on the top of the mountain is a temple to Zeus called the Remover. They say that Zeus was so called because when a great drought once happened to the Greeks, and Æacus in obedience to the oracle prayed to Pan-Hellenian Zeus at Ægina, he took it away and removed it. Here are also statues of Aphrodite and Apollo and Pan. And as you go on a little further is the tomb of Eurystheus. They say that he fled here from Attica after the battle with the Heraclidæ, and was killed by Iolaus. As you descend this road is a temple of Latoan Apollo, and near to it the boundaries between Megaris and Corinth, where they say Hyllus the son of Hercules had a single combat with the Arcadian Echemus.