Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

And Clitor the son of Azan had no children, so the kingdom of Arcadia devolved upon Æpytus the son of Elatus. And as he was out hunting he was killed not by any wild animal but by a serpent, little expecting such an end. I have myself seen the particular kind of serpent. It is a very small ash-coloured worm, marked with irregular stripes, its head is broad and its neck narrow, it has a large belly and small tail, and, like the serpent they call the horned serpent, walks sideways like the crab. And Æpytus was succeeded in the kingdom by Aleus, for Agamedes and Gortys, the sons of Stymphelus, were great-grandsons of Arcas, but Aleus was his grandson, being the son of Aphidas. And Aleus built the old temple to Athene Alea at Tegea, which he made the seat of his kingdom. And Gortys, the son of Stymphelus, built the town Gortys by the river called Gortynius. And Aleus had three sons, Lycurgus and Amphidamas and Cepheus, and one daughter Auge. According to Hecatæus Hercules, when he came to Tegea, had an intrigue with this Auge, and at last she was discovered to be with child by him, and Aleus put her and the child in a chest and let it drift to sea. And she got safely to Teuthras, a man of substance in the plain of Caicus, and he fell in love with her and married her. And her tomb is at Pergamus beyond the Caicus, a mound of earth with a stone wall round it, and on the tomb a device in bronze, a naked woman. And after the death of Aleus Lycurgus his son succeeded to the kingdom by virtue of being the eldest. He did nothing very notable except that he slew by guile and not fairly Areithous a warrior. And of his sons Epochus died of some illness, but Ancæus sailed to Colchi with Jason, and afterwards, hunting with Meleager the wild boar in Calydon, was killed by it. Lycurgus lived to an advanced old age, having survived both his sons.

[22] e.g. Odyssey, xiii. 104.

CHAPTER V.

And after the death of Lycurgus Echemus, the son of Aeropus the son of Cepheus the son of Aleus, became king of the Arcadians. In his reign the Dorians, who were returning to the Peloponnese under the leadership of Hyllus the son of Hercules, were beaten in battle by the Achæans near the Isthmus of Corinth, and Echemus slew Hyllus in single combat being challenged by him. For this seems more probable to me now than my former account, in which I wrote that Orestes was at this time king of the Achæans, and that it was during his reign that Hyllus ventured his descent upon the Peloponnese. And according to the later tradition it would seem that Timandra, the daughter of Tyndareus, married Echemus after he had killed Hyllus. And Agapenor, the son of Ancæus and grandson of Lycurgus, succeeded Echemus and led the Arcadians to Troy. And after the capture of Ilium the storm which fell on the Greeks as they were sailing home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to Cyprus, and he became the founder of Paphos, and erected the temple of Aphrodite in that town, the goddess having been previously honoured by the people of Cyprus in the place called Golgi. And afterwards Laodice, the daughter of Agapenor, sent to Tegea a robe for Athene Alea, and the inscription on it gives the nationality of Laodice.

“This is the robe which Laodice gave to her own Athene, sending it from sacred Cyprus to her spacious fatherland.”

And as Agapenor did not get home from Ilium, the kingdom devolved upon Hippothous, the son of Cercyon, the son of Agamedes, the son of Stymphelus. Of him they record nothing notable, but that he transferred the seat of the kingdom from Tegea to Trapezus. And Æpytus the son of Hippothous succeeded his father, and Orestes the son of Agamemnon, in obedience to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, migrated to Arcadia from Mycenæ. And Æpytus the son of Hippothous presuming to go into the temple of Poseidon at Mantinea, (though men were not allowed to enter it either then or now,) was struck blind on his entrance, and died not long afterwards.

And during the reign of Cypselus, his son and successor, the Dorians returned to the Peloponnese in ships, landing near the Promontory of Rhium, not as three generations earlier attempting to return by way of the Isthmus of Corinth, and Cypselus, hearing of their return, gave his daughter in marriage to Cresphontes, the only unmarried son of Aristomachus, and thus won him over to his interests, and he and the Arcadians had now nothing to fear. And the son and successor of Cypselus was Olæas, who, in junction with the Heraclidæ from Lacedæmon and Argos, restored his sister’s son Æpytus to Messene. The next king was Bucolion, the next Phialus, who deprived Phigalus, (the founder of Phigalia, and the son of Lycaon), of the honour of giving his name to that town, by changing its name to Phialia after his own name, though the new name did not universally prevail. And during the reign of Simus, the son of Phialus, the old statue of Black Demeter that belonged to the people of Phigalia was destroyed by fire. This was a portent that not long afterwards Simus himself would end his life. And during the reign of Pompus his successor the Æginetans sailed to Cyllene for purposes of commerce. There they put their goods on beasts of burden and took them into the interior of Arcadia. For this good service Pompus highly honoured the Æginetans, and out of friendship to them gave the name of Æginetes to his son and successor: who was succeeded by his son Polymestor during whose reign Charillus and the Lacedæmonians first invaded the district round Tegea, and were beaten in battle by the men of Tegea, and also by the women who put on armour, and Charillus and his army were taken prisoners. We shall give a further account of them when we come to Tegea. And as Polymestor had no children Æchmis succeeded, the son of Briacas, and nephew of Polymestor. Briacas was the son of Æginetes but younger than Polymestor. And it was during the reign of Æchmis that the war broke out between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians. The Arcadians had always had a kindly feeling towards the Messenians, and now they openly fought against the Lacedæmonians in conjunction with Aristodemus king of Messenia. And Aristocrates, the son of Æchmis, acted insolently to his fellow-countrymen in various ways, but his great impiety to the gods I cannot pass over. There is a temple of Artemis Hymnia on the borders between Orchomenus and Mantinea. She was worshipped of old by all the Arcadians. And her priestess at this time was a maiden. And Aristocrates, as she resisted all his attempts to seduce her, and fled at last for refuge to the altar near the statue of Artemis, defiled her there. And when his wickedness was reported to the Arcadians they stoned him to death, and their custom was thenceforward changed. For instead of a maiden as priestess of Artemis they had a woman who was tired of the company of men. His son was Hicetas, who had a son Aristocrates, of the same name as his grandfather, and who met with the same fate, for he too was stoned to death by the Arcadians, who detected him receiving bribes from Lacedæmon, and betraying the Messenians at the great reverse they met with at the Great Trench. This crime was the reason why all the descendants of Cypselus were deposed from the sovereignty of Arcadia.

CHAPTER VI.

In all these particulars about their kings, as I was curious, the Arcadians gave me full information. And as to the nation generally, their most ancient historical event is the war against Ilium, and next their fighting against the Lacedæmonians in conjunction with the Messenians; they also took part in the action against the Medes at Platæa. And rather from compulsion than choice they fought under the Lacedæmonians against the Athenians, and crossed into Asia Minor with Agesilaus, and were present at the battle of Leuctra in Bœotia. But on other occasions they exhibited their suspicion of the Lacedæmonians, and after the reverse of the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra they at once left them and joined the Thebans. They did not join the Greeks in fighting against Philip and the Macedonians at Chæronea, or in Thessaly against Antipater, nor did they fight against them, but they remained neutral. And they did not (they say) share in fighting against the Galati at Thermopylæ, only because they were afraid that, in the absence from home of the flower of their young men, the Lacedæmonians would ravage their land. And the Arcadians were of all the Greeks the most zealous members of the Achæan League. And all that happened to them that I could ascertain, not publicly but privately in their several cities, I shall describe as I come to each part of the subject.

The passes into Arcadia from Argolis are by Hysiæ and across the mountain Parthenium into the district of Tegea, and two by Mantinea through what are called Holm-Oak and Ladder. Ladder is the broadest, and has steps cut in it. And when you have crossed that pass you come to Melangea, which supplies the people of Mantinea with water to drink. And as you advance from Melangea, about seven stades further, you come to a well called the well of the Meliastæ. These Meliastæ have orgies to Dionysus, and they have a hall of Dionysus near the well, and a temple to Aphrodite Melænis (Black). There seems no other reason for this title of the goddess, than that men generally devote themselves to love in the darkness of night, not like the animals in broad daylight. The other pass over Artemisium is far narrower than Ladder-pass. I mentioned before that Artemisium has a temple and statue of Artemis, and that in it are the sources of the river Inachus, which as long as it flows along the mountain road is the boundary between the Argives and Mantineans, but when it leaves this road flows thenceforward through Argolis, and hence Æschylus and others call it the Argive river.