CHAPTER XV.
On the road from Corinth to Argos you come to the small town of Cleonæ. Some say Cleone was the daughter of Pelops, others that she was one of the daughters of Asopus, the river that flows by Sicyon: however the town got its name from her. There is a temple of Athene there, and a statue of the goddess by Scyllis and Dipœnus, pupils of Dædalus. But some say that Dædalus took a wife from Gortyns, and that Dipœnus and Scyllis were his sons by her. At Cleonæ beside this temple is the tomb of Eurytus and Cteatus, who had gone from Elis to be spectators of the Isthmian games, and whom Hercules shot with arrows there, charging them with having fought against him in the battle with Augeas.
From Cleonæ there are two roads to Argos, one convenient for rapid walkers and the shorter route, the other called Tretus (Bored), more convenient for a carriage, though it too is narrow and has mountains on both sides. Among these mountains is still shown the lair of the Nemean lion, for Nemea is only about 15 stades distant.
At Nemea is a temple well worth seeing of Nemean Zeus, only the roof has tumbled in, and there is no longer any statue there: but there is a cypress grove near the temple, where they say that Opheltes, placed on the grass there by his nurse, was devoured by a dragon. The Argives also sacrifice to Zeus at Nemea, and select the priest of Nemean Zeus, and have a contest in running for men in armour at the winter meeting at Nemea. Here too is the tomb of Opheltes, and round it a wall of stones, and altars within the precincts: and there is a piled up mound of earth as a monument to Lycurgus the father of Opheltes. And the fountain they call Adrastea, whether for some other reason or because Adrastus discovered it. And they say the name Nemea was given to the place by Nemea the daughter of Asopus. And above Nemea is the Mountain Apesas, where they say Perseus sacrificed first to Apesantian Zeus. And as you go up to Argos by the road called Tretus you will see on the left hand the ruins of Mycenæ. All Greeks know that Perseus founded Mycenæ, and I shall relate the circumstances of the founding, and why the Argives afterwards dispossessed the old inhabitants. For in what is now called Argolis they mention no older town, and they say that Inachus the king gave his name to the river, and sacrificed to Hera. They also say that Phoroneus was the first mortal in this land, and that Inachus his father was not a man but a river: and that he and Cephisus and Asterion were the arbitrators between Poseidon and Hera in their dispute about the land: and when they judged that it was Hera’s, then Poseidon took away all their water. And this is the reason why neither Inachus nor any other of these rivers mentioned have any water except after rain. And in summer their streams are dry except at Lerna. And Phoroneus the son of Inachus first gathered men together in communities, who before lived scattered and solitary: so the city in which they were first gathered together was called Phoronicum.