Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

This oracle was the salvation of Pisa. And to Phyleus Hercules gave up Elis and other places, not so much willingly as standing in awe of Phyleus, to whom he also granted the captives and forgave Augeas. And the women of Elis, as their land was stripped of young men through the war, are said to have prayed to Athene that they might conceive directly they married, and their prayer was granted, and they erected a temple to Athene under the title of Mother. And both the women and men being excessively delighted with their union called the place where they first met Bady (sweet), and also gave the same name in their national dialect to the river flowing there.

And when Phyleus, after setting things in order in Elis, returned to Dulichium, Augeas died being already advanced in age, and was succeeded in the kingdom of Elis by his son Agasthenes, and by Amphimachus, and Thalpius. For the sons of Actor married two sisters, the daughters of Dexamenus who was king at Olenus, and the one had by Theronice Amphimachus, and the other Eurytus had by Theræphone Thalpius. Not that Amarynceus or Diores his son remained all their lives in a private capacity. As we know from Homer in his catalogue of the men of Elis, all their fleet was 40 sail, and half of them were under Amphimachus and Thalpius, and of the remaining half ten were under Diores the son of Amarynceus, and ten under Polyxenus the son of Agasthenes. And Polyxenus coming back safe from Troy had a son Amphimachus, (he gave his son this name I fancy from his friendship to Amphimachus the son of Cteatus who perished at Ilium), and he had a son Eleus, and it was when Eleus was king at Elis that the Dorian host mustered under the sons of Aristomachus with a view to return to the Peloponnese. This oracle came to the kings, that they must make a man with three eyes leader of the return. And as they were in great doubt what the oracle could mean, a muleteer chanced to pass by, whose mule was blind of one eye. And Cresphontes conjecturing that the oracle referred to this man, the Dorians invited him to be their leader. And he urged them to return to the Peloponnese in ships, and not force their way through the isthmus with a land force. This was his advice, and at the same time he piloted the fleet from Naupactus to Molycrium, and they in return for his services agreed to give him at his request the kingdom of Elis. And the man’s name was Oxylus, he was the son of Hæmon, the son of Thoas, who in conjunction with the sons of Atreus had overturned the kingdom of Priam; and between Thoas and Ætolus the son of Endymion there are six generations. And the Heraclidæ were in other respects kinsmen to the kings in Ætolia, besides the fact that the sisters of Thoas were mothers by Hercules of Andræmon and Hyllus. And Oxylus had to flee from Ætolia in consequence of an accident, in throwing a quoit (they say) he missed his aim and unintentionally killed his brother Thermius, or according to some accounts Alcidocus the son of Scopius.

CHAPTER IV.

There is also another tradition about Oxylus, that he suspected the sons of Aristomachus of an unwillingness to give him the kingdom of Elis, as it was fertile and well cultivated everywhere, and this was why he led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. And when Oxylus hastened to take the kingdom of Elis without contention Dius would not permit him, but challenged him not to a contention with all their forces, but to a single combat between two soldiers one from each side. And both agreed to this. And the men selected for this single combat were Degmenus a bowman of Elis, and Pyræchmes on the Ætolian side a famous slinger. And as Pyræchmes was victorious Oxylus got the kingdom, and he allowed the ancient Epeans to remain there, but introduced Ætolians as colonists with them, and gave them also a share in the land. And to Dius he gave various honours, and observed the rights of all the heroes according to old precedents, and introduced sacrificial offerings to Augeas which have continued to our day. It is said that he also persuaded the men in the villages, who were at no great distance from the walls, to come into the city, and thus increased the population of Elis and made it more powerful in other respects. And an oracle came to him from Delphi to associate with him as colonist a descendant of Pelops, and he made diligent search, and discovered Agorius the son of Damasius, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, and invited him from Helice in Achaia and with him a few Achæans. And they say Oxylus had a wife called Pieria, but they record nothing further about her. And the sons of Oxylus were they say Ætolus and Laias. And Ætolus dying in his father’s lifetime, his parents buried him and erected a sepulchre to him by the gate, which leads to Olympia and the temple of Zeus. And they buried him there in accordance with the oracle, which said that his dead body was to be neither in nor out of the city. And annually still the master of the gymnasium offers victims to Ætolus.

Oxylus was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Laias. I could not find that his sons reigned, so I purposely pass them over, for it has not been my desire in this narrative to descend to private personages. But some time afterwards Iphitus, who was of the same family as Oxylus, and a contemporary of Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian legislator, revived the contest at Olympia, and renewed the public gathering there, and established a truce as long as the games lasted. Why the meetings at Olympia had been discontinued I shall narrate when I come to Olympia. And as Greece at this time was nearly ruined by civil wars and by the pestilence, Iphitus bethought him to ask of the god at Delphi a remission from these ills. And they say he was ordered by the Pythian Priestess to join the people of Elis in restoring the Olympian games. Iphitus also persuaded the people of Elis to sacrifice to Hercules, for before this they had an idea that Hercules was hostile to them. And the inscription at Olympia says that Iphitus was the son of Hæmon, but most of the Greeks say he was the son of Praxonides and not of Hæmon. But the ancient records of the people of Elis trace him up to a father of the same name as himself viz. Iphitus.

The people of Elis took part in the Trojan war, and also in the battles against the Persians when they invaded Greece. And to pass over their frequent disputes with the people of Pisa and the Arcadians in respect to the re-establishment of the games at Olympia, they joined the Lacedæmonians not without reluctance in invading Attica, and not long after they fought against the Lacedæmonians, having formed an alliance with the Mantineans the Argives and the Athenians. And on the occasion of Agis making an incursion into Elis, when Xenias played the traitor, the people of Elis were victorious at Olympia, and routed the Lacedæmonians, and drove them from the precincts of the temple: and some time afterwards the war came to an end on the conditions which I have mentioned before in my account of the Lacedæmonians. And when Philip, the son of Amyntas, could not keep his hands off Greece, the people of Elis, worn out with intestine factions, joined the Macedonians, but not to the point of fighting against the Greeks at Chæronea. But they participated in the attack of Philip upon the Lacedæmonians by reason of their ancient hatred to them. But after the death of Alexander they joined the Greeks in fighting against Antipater and the Macedonians.

CHAPTER V.

And in process of time Aristotimus, the son of Damaretus, the son of Etymon, obtained the sovereignty at Elis, partly through the assistance of Antigonus the son of Demetrius, who was king of the Macedonians. But when he had reigned only six months, Chilon and Hellanicus and Lampis and Cylon rose up against him and deposed him; and Cylon slew him with his own hand when he had fled as suppliant to the altar of Zeus Soter. These are the chief wars the people of Elis took part in, just to glance at them briefly in the present portion of my work.

Among the wonders of Elis are the flax, which grows here alone and in no other part of Greece, and also the fact that, though over the borders mares bear foals to he-asses, it is never so in Elis. And this phenomenon is they say the result of a curse. The flax in Elis in respect of thinness is not inferior to the flax of the Hebrews, but is not as yellow.

And as you go from the district of Elis there is a place by the sea called Samicum, and beyond it on the right is the district called Triphylia, and the city Lepreus in it. The people of Lepreus think they belong properly to Arcadia, but it is manifest they were from time immemorial subject to Elis. For the victors at Olympia that came from Lepreus were pronounced by the herald men of Elis. And Aristophanes has described Lepreus as a city in Elis. One way to Lepreus from Samicum is by leaving the river Aniger on the left, and a second is from Olympia, and a third from Elis, and the longest of them is only a day’s journey. The city got its name they say from Lepreus the son of Pyrgeus its founder. There is a tradition that Lepreus had an eating contest with Hercules, each killed an ox at the same time and cooked it for dinner, and (as he had betted) he was quite a match for Hercules in eating. But he had the hardihood afterwards to challenge Hercules to a contest in arms. And they say he was killed in that contest and buried at Phigalia, however his sepulchre there is not shewn. And I have heard some who claim that their city was founded by Leprea the daughter of Pyrgeus. Others say that the inhabitants of this region were the first lepers, and that the city got its name from this misfortune of its inhabitants. And the people of Lepreus say that in their city they once had a temple of Leucæan Zeus, and the tomb of Lycurgus the son of Aleus, and also the tomb of Caucon. The last had they say as a design over it a man with a lyre. But in my time there is no remarkable tomb there, nor any temple of the gods except one of Demeter: built of unbaked brick, and containing no statue. And not far from the city Lepreus is a spring called Arene: it got this name according to tradition from the wife of Aphareus.