Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

Where three and four and even five roads meet,

There build a shrine and sacrifice to Arcas.”

And the place where the tomb of Arcas is they call the altars of the Sun. And not far from the theatre are some famous tombs, Vesta called Common a round figure, and they say Antinoe the daughter of Cepheus lies here. And there is a pillar above another tomb, and a man on horseback carved on the pillar, Gryllus the son of Xenophon. And behind the theatre are ruins of a temple of Aphrodite Symmachia and her statue, and the inscription on the basement of it states that Nicippe the daughter of Paseas offered it. And this temple was erected by the Mantineans as a record to posterity of the seafight off Actium fought by them in conjunction with the Romans. And they worship Athene Alea, and have a temple and statue of her. They also regard Antinous as a god, his temple is the latest in Mantinea, he was excessively beloved by the emperor Adrian. I never saw him alive but have seen statues and paintings of him. He has also honours elsewhere, and there is a city near the Nile in Egypt called after him, and the following is the reason why he was honoured at Mantinea. He belonged by birth to the town Bithynium in Bithynia beyond the river Sangarius, and the Bithynians were originally Arcadians from Mantinea. That is why the Emperor assigned him divine honours at Mantinea, and his rites are annual, and games are held to him every fifth year. And the Mantineans have a room in the Gymnasium which has statues of Antinous, and is in other respects well worth a visit for the precious stones with which it is adorned and the paintings, most of which are of Antinous and make him resemble young Dionysus. And moreover there is an imitation here of the painting at Ceramicus of the action of the Athenians at Mantinea. And in the market-place the Mantineans have the brazen image of a woman, who they say is Diomenea the daughter of Arcas, and they have also the hero-chapel of Podares, who they say fell in the battle against Epaminondas and the Thebans. But three generations before my time they changed the inscription on the tomb to suit a descendant and namesake of Podares, who lived at the period when one could become a Roman Citizen. But it was the old Podares that the Mantineans in my time honoured, saying that the bravest (whether of their own men or their allies) in the battle was Gryllus the son of Xenophon, and next Cephisodorus of Marathon, who was at that time the Commander of the Athenian Cavalry, and next Podares.

CHAPTER X.

There are roads leading from Mantinea to the other parts of Arcadia, I will describe the most notable things to see on each of them. As you go to Tegea on the left of the highroad near the walls of Mantinea is a place for horseracing, and at no great distance is the course where the games to Antinous take place. And above this course is the Mountain Alesium, so called they say from the wanderings of Rhea, and on the mountain is a grove of Demeter. And at the extreme end of the mountain is the temple of Poseidon Hippius, not far from the course in Mantinea. As to this temple I write what I have heard and what others have recorded about it. It was built in our day by the Emperor Adrian, who appointed overseers over the workmen, that no one might spy into the old temple nor move any portion of its ruins, and he ordered them to build the new temple round the old one, which was they say originally built to Poseidon by Agamedes and Trophonius, who made beams of oak and adjusted them together. And when they kept people from entering into this temple they put up no barrier in front of the entrance, but only stretched across a woollen thread, whether they thought this would inspire fear as people then held divine things in honour, or that there was some efficacy in this thread. And Æpytus the son of Hippothous neither leapt over this thread nor crept under it but broke through it and so entered the temple, and having acted with impiety was struck blind, (sea water bursting into his eyes from the outraged god), and soon after died. There is an old tradition that sea water springs up in this temple. The Athenians have a similar tradition about their Acropolis, and so have the Carians who dwell at Mylasa about the temple of their god, whom they call in their native dialect Osogo. The Athenians are only about 20 stades distant from the sea at Phalerum, and the seaport for Mylasa is 80 stades from that town, but the Mantineans are at such a very long distance from the sea that this is plainly supernatural there.

When you have passed the temple of Poseidon you come to a trophy in stone erected for a victory over the Lacedæmonians and Agis. This was the disposition of the battle. On the right wing were the Mantineans themselves, with an army of all ages under the command of Podares, the great grandson of that Podares who had fought against the Thebans. They had also with them the seer from Elis, Thrasybulus the son of Æneas of the family of the Iamidæ, who prophesied victory for the Mantineans, and himself took part in the action. The rest of the Arcadians were posted on the left wing, each town had its own commander, and Megalopolis had two, Lydiades and Leocydes. And Aratus with the Sicyonians and Achæans occupied the centre. And Agis and the Lacedæmonians extended their line of battle that they might not be outflanked by the enemy, and Agis and his staff occupied the centre. And Aratus according to preconcerted arrangement with the Arcadians fell back (he and his army) when the Lacedæmonians pressed them hard, and as they fell back they formed the shape of a crescent. And Agis and the Lacedæmonians were keen for victory, and en masse pressed fiercely on Aratus and his division. And they were followed by the Lacedæmonians on the wings, who thought it would be a great stepping stone to victory to rout Aratus and his division. But the Arcadians meanwhile stole upon their flanks, and the Lacedæmonians being surrounded lost most of their men, and their king Agis the son of Eudamidas fell. And the Mantineans said that Poseidon appeared helping them, and that is why they erected their trophy as a votive offering to Poseidon. That the gods have been present at war and slaughter has been represented by those who have described the doings and sufferings of the heroes at Ilium, the Athenian poets have sung also that the gods took part in the battles at Marathon and Salamis. And manifestly the army of the Galati perished at Delphi through Apollo and the evident assistance of divine beings. So the victory here of the Mantineans may have been largely due to Poseidon. And they say that Leocydes, who with Lydiades was the general of the division from Megalopolis, was the ninth descendant from Arcesilaus who lived at Lycosura, of whom the Arcadians relate the legend that he saw a stag (which was sacred to the goddess Proserpine) of extreme old age, on whose neck was a collar with the following inscription,

“I was a fawn and captured, when Agapenor went to Ilium.”

This tradition shews that the stag is much longer-lived than the elephant.

CHAPTER XI.

Next to the temple of Poseidon you will come to a place full of oak trees called Pelagos; there is a road from Mantinea to Tegea through these oak trees. And the boundary between the districts of Mantinea and Tegea is the round altar on the highroad. And if you should turn to the left from the temple of Poseidon, in about five stades you will come to the tombs of the daughters of Pelias. The people of Mantinea say they dwelt here to avoid the vituperations which came upon them for the death of their father. For as soon as Medea came to Iolcos she forthwith plotted against Pelias, really working for Jason’s interest, while ostensibly hostile to him. She told the daughters of Pelias that, if they liked, she could make their father a young man instead of an old man. So she slew a ram and boiled his flesh with herbs in a caldron, and she brought the old ram out of the caldron in the shape of a young man alive. After this she took Pelias to boil and cut him up, but his daughters got hardly enough of him to take to burial. This compelled them to go and live in Arcadia, and when they died their sepulchres were raised here. No poet has given their names so far as I know, but Mico the painter has written under their portraits the names Asteropea and Antinoe.