CHAPTER XXXVI.
About seven stades on the high road to Mases, as you turn to the left, is the road to Halice. Halice in our days is deserted, but it was formerly inhabited, and is mentioned on the pillars of the Epidaurians, which record the cures wrought by Æsculapius. I know of nothing else worthy of record, either of the place or its population. And the road that leads to it passes between Pron and another mountain that in old times was called Thornax. But because of the legendary change of Zeus into the cuckoo they say its name was changed to Coccygium (Cuckoo-mountain). And there are temples on the tops of both these mountains, one of Zeus on the top of Coccygium, and one of Hera on the top of Pron. That at Coccygium is at the end of the mountain, and it has neither doors nor roof, nor any statue in it, and it was said to be Apollo’s temple. And near it is a road to Mases as you take the turn to the right. And Mases was a town in old times, as Homer has mentioned it in his catalogue of the Argives, and the people of Hermione use it as their port now. And from Mases there is a road on the right to the promontory called Struthus, and it is about 250 stades from this promontory along the mountain passes to what is called Philanorium and to Bolei. Bolei consists of layers of unhewn stones. And another place which they call Didymi is 20 stades from Bolei. At Didymi there is a temple of Apollo, and another of Poseidon, and another of Demeter: and their statues are erect, in white stone.
As you go from thence you come to the district of the Argives formerly called Asinæa from its chief town Asine, the ruins of which are near the sea. And when the Lacedæmonians under their king Nicander, the son of Charillus, the son of Polydectes, the son of Eunomus, the son of Prytanis, the son of Eurypon, invaded Argolis with an army, the people of Asine joined them, and ravaged with them the territory of the Argives. But when the Lacedæmonian force went home again, then the Argives and their king Eratus marched against Asine. And for some time the people of Asine defended their walls, and slew several of the most valiant of the Argives and among them Lysistratus, but when their walls were carried, then they put their wives and children on shipboard and left the town, and the Argives razed it to the ground, and added it to their territory, but they left the temple of Apollo standing, and it is now to be seen, and they buried Lysistratus near it.
Now the sea at Lerna[29] is about 40 stades from Argos. And as you go down to Lerna you first come to the river Erasinus, which flows into the Phrixus, and the Phrixus into the sea between Temenium and Lerna. And as you turn from the Erasinus about 8 stades to the left there is a temple of the Dioscuri called the Kings: and their statues are of wood just like those in the city. And as you turn to the right you cross the Erasinus, and come to the river Chimarrus. And near it is a circle of stones, and here (so the story goes) Pluto, after the Rape of Proserpine the daughter of Demeter, descended to his supposed underground realms. Now Lerna is, as I have previously said, by the sea, and they have rites here to Demeter of Lerna. And there is a sacred grove beginning at the mountain which they call Pontinus. And this mountain Pontinus does not let the rain flow off, but absorbs it. Though the river Pontinus does indeed flow from it. And on the top of the mountain is the temple of Saitian Athene, only ruins now, and the foundations of the house of Hippomedon, who accompanied Polynices the son of Œdipus in his attempt against Thebes.