Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

And as you return to Samicum, and go through it, the river Aniger has its outlet to the sea. The flow of this river is often impeded by violent winds: for they blow the sand from the shore into it and dam up the flow of the river. Whenever then this sand becomes soaked with water, (outside by the sea inside by the river), it becomes a very dangerous place for carts and carriages and even for an active man to ford. This river Aniger rises in the Arcadian mountain Lapithus, and the water has an unpleasant smell from its source. Before receiving its tributary the Acidas it is too fetid to have any fish whatever, and after its confluence with the Acidas, though it has fish that come into its waters from that tributary, they are no longer eatable, which they are when caught in the Acidas. That the ancient name of the river Acidas was Iardanus I should not myself have conjectured, but I was so informed by an Ephesian. The unpleasant smell of the Aniger comes I believe from the soil through which the river flows, as is certainly the case with those rivers beyond Ionia, whose exhalations are deadly to man. Some of the Greeks say that Chiron, others that Pylenor the Centaur, was wounded by Hercules, and fled and washed his sore in this river, and that it was from the Hydra’s poison (in which Hercules’ arrow had been dipped) that the Aniger got its unpleasant smell. Others refer this condition of the river to Melampus the son of Amythaon, and to the fact that the purifications of the daughters of Prœtus were thrown into it.

There is at Samicum a cave, not far from the river, called the cave of the Nymphs of the Aniger. Whoever goes into it suffering from either black or white leprosy, must first of all pray to these Nymphs and promise sacrifice to them, and afterwards wipe clean the diseased parts of his body. If he next swims across the river he leaves in the water his foul disease, and comes out of the river sound and with his skin uniformly clear.

CHAPTER VI.

On the high road, after crossing the Aniger in the direction of Olympia, there is at no great distance on the right an eminence, and on it a town called Samia above Samicum. This town[67] they say was made into a sort of offensive fortress against the Arcadians by Polysperchon, an Ætolian.

As to the ruins of Arene, none either of the Messenians or people of Elis could give me a clear account. As their explanations are different those who like to conjecture are at liberty to do so. The most credible account seems to me that of those who think that the ancient name of Samicum earlier than the time of the heroes was Arene. And these quote the lines in the Iliad.

“There is a river Minyeïus,

That flows into the sea near to Arene.”

Iliad, xi 722, 723.

And these ruins of Arene are very near the Aniger. One might have doubted about Samicum having been called Arene, only the Arcadians admit that the ancient name of the river Aniger was Minyeïus. And one would feel sure that the river Neda near the sea was the boundary between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heraclidæ to the Peloponnese.

And leaving the Aniger, and passing through a district generally sandy and full of wild pine-trees, somewhat back to the left you will see the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was one of the towns of Triphylia: and in the war between the people of Elis and Pisa the people of Scillus openly allied themselves to the people of Pisa, and in return the men of Elis dispossessed them from Scillus. But the Lacedæmonians afterwards sliced Scillus from Elis, and gave it to Xenophon (the son of Gryllus), who was at that time exiled from Athens. He was banished by the Athenians for joining Cyrus (who hated their democracy) against the king of the Persians (who was their friend): for when Cyrus was at Sardis he gave Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedæmonians some money for their fleet. This is why Xenophon was banished, and he lived at Scillus and built a temple and grove to Ephesian Artemis. And Scillus affords good hunting of wild animals, as wild boars and deer. And the river Selinus flows through the district. And the antiquarians of Elis say that the people of Elis recovered Scillus, and that Xenophon was tried in the Olympian council for receiving Scillus from the Lacedæmonians, but was acquitted and allowed to continue there scot free. And at some little distance from the temple they show a tomb, and there is an effigy on the tomb in Pentelican marble, which the people of the place say is Xenophon.