And not far from the tomb of Mermerus and Pheres is the temple of Athene the Bridler: who they say helped Bellerophon more than any of the gods in various ways, and gave him Pegasus, after having broken it in and bridled it herself. Her statue is of wood, but the head and hands and toes are of white stone. That Bellerophon was not absolute king at Corinth, but limited in his power by Prœtus and the Argives I am positive, as every one will be who has read Homer carefully. And when Bellerophon migrated into Lycia, the Corinthians seem just the same to have obeyed those who were in power at Argos or Mycenæ. And they had no separate commander-in-chief of their own in the expedition against Troy, but took part in the expedition only as a contingent with the men of Mycenæ; and Agamemnon’s other troops. And Sisyphus had as sons not only Glaucus the father of Bellerophon, but also Ornytion, and Thersander, and Almus. And Phocus was the son of Ornytion, though nominally the son of Poseidon. And he colonized Tithorea in what is now called Phocis, but Thoas, the younger son of Ornytion, remained at Corinth. And Demophon was the son of Thoas, Propodas the son of Demophon, Doridas and Hyanthidas the sons of Propodas. During the joint reign of Doridas and Hyanthidas the Dorians led an expedition against Corinth, under the command of Aletes the son of Hippotas, (the son of Phylas, the son of Antiochus, the son of Hercules). Doridas and Hyanthidas handed over the kingdom to Aletes, and were permitted to remain at Corinth, but the Corinthian people were expelled, after being beaten in battle by the Dorians. And Aletes himself and his descendants reigned for five generations, down to Bacchis the son of Prumnis, and his descendants the Bacchidæ reigned five more generations, down to Telestes the son of Aristodemus. And Telestes was slain by Arieus and Perantas out of hatred, and there were no longer any kings, but Presidents elected annually from the Bacchidæ, till Cypselus the son of Eetion drove out the Bacchidæ, and made himself king. He was the descendant of Melas the son of Antasus. And when Melas joined the Dorian expedition against Corinth from Gonussa beyond Sicyon, Aletes at first according to the oracle told him to go to other Greeks, but afterwards disregarded the oracle and took him as associate. Such is the result of my researches about the kings of the Corinthians.
Now the temple of Athene the Bridler is near the theatre, and not far off is a wooden statue of a naked Hercules, which they say is the work of Dædalus. All the works of Dædalus are somewhat odd to look at, but there is a wonderful inspiration about them. And above the theatre is a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the Roman diction, in Greek it would be Zeus Coryphæus. And not far from this theatre is an old gymnasium, and a well called Lerna. And there are pillars round it, and seats to refresh those who come in in summertime. In this gymnasium there are shrines of the gods, one of Zeus, one of Æsculapius: and statues of Æsculapius and Hygiea (Health) in white stone, and one of Zeus in brass. As you ascend to Acro-Corinthus, (it is the top of the hill above the city, Briareus gave it to the Sun, after litigation, and the Sun, as the Corinthians say, let Aphrodite have it), there are two temples of Isis, one they call the Pelagian and the other the Egyptian, and two of Serapis, one under the name of Canobus. And next them are altars to the Sun, and a temple of Necessity and Force, into which it is not customary to enter. Above this is a temple of the Mother of the Gods, and a stone pillar and seat. The temples of the Fates and Demeter and Proserpine have statues rather dim with age. Here too is a temple of Bunæan Hera, which Bunus the son of Hermes erected. Hence the goddess got the title Bunæan.
CHAPTER V.
On the ascent to Acro-Corinthus there is also a temple of Aphrodite: and statues of her in full armour, and the Sun, and Cupid with a bow. And the fountain behind the temple is they say the gift of Asopus to Sisyphus: for he, though he knew that Zeus had carried off Ægina the daughter of Asopus, refused to tell him unless he would give him this water on Acro-Corinthus. And Asopus giving this water he vouchsafed the required information, and for his information pays the penalty in Hades, if indeed this is credible. But I have heard people say that this fountain is Pirene, and that the water in the city flows down from it. This river Asopus has its rise in the neighbourhood of Phlius, flows through the Sicyonian district, and has its outlet in the Corinthian Gulf. And the people of Phlius say that Asopus’ daughters were Corcyra and Ægina and Thebe: and that from Corcyra and Ægina the islands Scheria and Œnone got their present names, and that Thebe gave its name to Thebes the city of Cadmus. But the Thebans do not admit this, for they say that Thebe was the daughter of the Bœotian Asopus, and not the Asopus that has its rise at Phlius. The Phliasians and Sicyonians say further about this river that it is foreign and not indigenous, for Mæander they say flowing down from Celænæ through Phrygia and Caria, and falling into the sea at Miletus, travelled to the Peloponnese and made the river Asopus. And I remember to have heard something of the same kind from the people of Delos of the river Inopus, which they say came to them from the Nile. And moreover there is a tradition that the same Nile is the river Euphrates, which was lost in a lake and re-emerged as the Nile in the remote part of Ethiopia. This is what I heard about the Asopus. As you turn towards the mountains from Acro-Corinthus is the Teneatic gate, and a temple of Ilithyia. Now Tenea is about 60 stades from Corinth. And the people of Tenea say that they are Trojans, and were carried away captive by the Greeks from Tenedos, and located here by Agamemnon: and accordingly Apollo is the god they hold in highest honour.
And as you go from Corinth along the coast in the direction of Sicyon there is a temple, which was burnt down, not far from the city on the left hand of the way. There have been several wars in the neighbourhood of Corinth, and fire has consumed, as one would indeed expect, both houses and temples outside the city walls: this was they say a temple of Apollo, and burnt down by Pyrrhus the son of Achilles. I have also heard another account, that the Corinthians erected this temple to Olympian Zeus, and that it was some accidental fire that burnt it down. And the people of Sicyon, who are near neighbours to the Corinthians, say of their region that Ægialeus the Autochthon first dwelt there, and that what is now called Ægialus in the Peloponnese was called after him its king, and that he was founder of Ægialea a city in the plain: and that the site of the temple of Apollo was the citadel. And they say that the son of Ægialeus was Europs, and the son of Europs Telchis, and the son of Telchis Apis. Now this Apis had grown to such magnitude before Pelops came to Olympia, that all the land inside the Isthmus was called after him Apian. And the son of Apis was Thelxion, and the son of Thelxion was Ægyrus, and his son was Thurimachus, and the son of Thurimachus was Leucippus, and Leucippus had no male children, and only one daughter Chalcinia, who they say bore a child to Poseidon, who was called Peratus, and was brought up by Leucippus, and on his death succeeded to the kingdom as his heir. And the history of Plemnæus the son of Peratus seems to me most marvellous. All his children died that his wife bare to him directly they were born and had uttered the first cry, till Demeter took compassion on him, and coming to Ægialea as a stranger to Plemnæus reared his child Orthopolis. And Orthopolis had a daughter Chrysorthe: she had a child, supposed to be Apollo’s, called Coronus. And Coronus had Corax and a younger son Lamedon.
CHAPTER VI.
And Corax dying childless, about this time Epopeus came from Thessaly and obtained the kingdom. In his reign first (they say) did a hostile army ever come into their country, as they had heretofore in all time lived in peace. And the origin of the war was this. Antiope the daughter of Nycteus had a great reputation for beauty among the Greeks, and there was a rumour about her that she was the daughter of Asopus, the river that forms the boundary between Thebes and Platæa, and not the daughter of Nycteus. I know not whether Epopeus asked her in marriage, or carried her off with more audacious designs from the beginning. But the Thebans came with an army, and Nycteus was wounded, and Epopeus too (though he won the victory). Nycteus though very bad they took back to Thebes, and, when he was on the point of death, he gave orders that Lycus his brother should be ruler of the Thebans for the present: for Nycteus himself was Regent for Labdacus, (the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus), who was still a child, and now he left the Regency to Lycus. He also begged Lycus to go with a larger force to Ægialea and punish Epopeus, and even to illtreat Antiope if he could get hold of her. And Epopeus at first offered sacrifices for his victory and built a temple to Athene, and when it was finished prayed that the goddess would shew by some sign if it was to her mind, and after the prayer they say oil trickled in front of the temple. But afterwards Epopeus chanced to die of his wound which had been originally neglected, so Lycus had no longer any need of war, for Lamedon (the son of Coronus) the king after Epopeus gave Antiope up. And she, as she was being conducted to Thebes, gave birth to a child on the road near Eleutheræ. And it is in reference to this event that Asius the son of Amphiptolemus has written the lines, “Antiope, the daughter of the deep-eddying river Asopus, bare Zethus and divine Amphion, being pregnant both by Zeus, and Epopeus shepherd of his people.”
But Homer[14] has given them a finer pedigree, and says that they first built Thebes, distinguishing as it seems to me the lower city from the city built by Cadmus. And King Lamedon married a wife from Athens, Pheno the daughter of Clytius: and afterwards, when there was war between him and Archander and Architeles, the sons of Achæus, he invited Sicyon from Attica to help him, and gave him his daughter Zeuxippe in marriage, and when he became king the region got called after him Sicyonia, and the town Sicyon instead of Ægialea. And the Sicyonians say that Sicyon was not the son of Marathon the son of Epopeus, but the son of Metion the son of Erechtheus. And Asius agrees with them. But Hesiod has represented Sicyon as the son of Erechtheus, and Ibycus says he was the son of Pelops. However Sicyon had a daughter Chthonophyle, who is said to have had a son Polybus by Hermes: and afterwards Phlias the son of Dionysus married her, and she had a son Androdamas. And Polybus gave his daughter Lysianassa to Talaus, the son of Bias, the king of the Argives: and when Adrastus fled from Argos he went to Polybus at Sicyon, and after Polybus’ death he obtained the chief power at Sicyon. But when Adrastus was restored to Argos, then Ianiscus the descendant of Clytius, the father in law of Lamedon, came from Attica and became king, and on his death Phæstus, who was reputed to be one of the sons of Hercules. And Phæstus having migrated to Crete in accordance with an oracle, Zeuxippus, the son of Apollo and the nymph Syllis, is said to have become king. And after the death of Zeuxippus Agamemnon led an army against Sicyon and its king Hippolytus, the son of Rhopalus, the son of Phæstus. And Hippolytus fearing the invading army agreed to be subject to Agamemnon and Mycenæ. And this Hippolytus had a son Lacestades. And Phalces, the son of Temenus, having seized Sicyon by night in conjunction with the Dorians, did no harm to Lacestades (as being himself also a descendant of Hercules), but shared the royal power with him.
CHAPTER VII.
And the Sicyonians became Dorians after this, and a part of Argolis. And their city, built by Ægialeus in the plain, Demetrius the son of Antigonus razed to the ground, and built the present city on the site of what was in former times the citadel. And the reason of the low fortunes of the Sicyonians one could not find out by investigation, but one would have to be content with what is said by Homer about Zeus,[15]