The founder of Heræa was Heræus the son of Lycaon, and the town lies on the right of the Alpheus, most of it on a gentle eminence, but part of it extending to the river. Near the river are race-courses separated from each other by myrtle trees and other planted trees, and there are baths, and two temples of Dionysus, one called Polites, and the other Auxites. And they have a building where they celebrate the orgies of Dionysus. There is also at Heræa a temple of Pan, who was a native of Arcadia. And there are some ruins of a temple of Hera, of which the pillars still remain. And of all the Arcadian athletes Damaretus of Heræa was the foremost, and the first who conquered at Olympia in the race in heavy armour. And as you go from Heræa to Elis, you will cross the Ladon about 15 stades from Heræa, and from thence to Erymanthus is about 20 stades. And the boundary between Heræa and Elis is according to the Arcadian account the Erymanthus, but the people of Elis say that the boundary is the tomb of Corœbus, who was victor when Iphitus restored the Olympian games that had been for a long time discontinued, and offered prizes only for racing. And there is an inscription on his tomb that he was the first victor at Olympia, and that his tomb was erected on the borders of Elis.
There is a small town also called Aliphera, which was abandoned by many of its inhabitants at the time the Arcadian colony was formed at Megalopolis. To get to Aliphera from Heræa you cross the Alpheus, and when you have gone along the plain about 10 stades you arrive at a mountain, and about 30 stades further you will get to Aliphera over the mountain. The town got its name from Alipherus the son of Lycaon, and has temples of Æsculapius and Athene. The latter they worship most, and say that she was born and reared among them; they have also built an altar here to Zeus Lecheates, so called because he gave birth to Athene here. And they call their fountain Tritonis, adopting as their own the tradition about the river Triton. And there is a statue of Athene in bronze, the work of Hypatodorus, notable both for its size and artistic merit. They have also a public festival to one of the gods, who I think must be Athene. In this public festival they sacrifice first of all to Muiagrus (Flycatcher), and offer to him vows and call upon him, and when they have done this they think they will no longer be troubled by flies. And on the road from Heræa to Megalopolis is Melæneæ, which was founded by Melæneus the son of Lycaon, but is deserted in our day, being swamped with water. And 40 stades higher is Buphagium, where the river Buphagus rises, which falls into the Alpheus. And the sources of the Buphagus are the boundary between the districts of Megalopolis and Heræa.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Megalopolis is the most recent city not only in Arcadia but in all Greece, except those which have been filled by settlers from Rome in the changes made by the Roman Empire. And the Arcadians crowded into it to swell its strength, remembering that the Argives in older days had run almost daily risk of being reduced in war by the Lacedæmonians, but when they had made Argos strong by an influx of population then they were able to reduce Tiryns, and Hysiæ, and Orneæ, and Mycenæ, and Midea, and other small towns of no great importance in Argolis, and had not only less fear of the Lacedæmonians but were stronger as regards their neighbours generally. Such was the idea which made the Arcadians crowd into Megalopolis. The founder of the city might justly be called Epaminondas the Theban: for he it was that stirred up the Arcadians to this colonization, and sent 1,000 picked Thebans, with Parmenes as their leader, to defend the Arcadians should the Lacedæmonians attempt to prevent the colonization. And the Arcadians chose as founders of the colony Lycomedes and Opoleas from Mantinea, and Timon and Proxenus from Tegea, and Cleolaus and Acriphius from Clitor, and Eucampidas and Hieronymus from Mænalus, and Possicrates and Theoxenus from Parrhasium. And the towns which were persuaded by the Arcadians (out of liking for them and hatred to the Lacedæmonians) to leave their own native places were Alea, Pallantium, Eutæa, Sumateum, Iasæa, Peræthes, Helisson, Oresthasium, Dipæa, Lycæa, all these from Mænalus. And of the Entresii Tricoloni, and Zœtium, and Charisia, and Ptolederma, and Cnausus, and Parorea. And of the Ægytæ Scirtonium, and Malæa, and Cromi, and Blenina, and Leuctrum. And of the Parrhasii Lycosura, and Thocnia, and Trapezus, and Proses, and Acacesium, and Acontium, and Macaria, and Dasea. And of the Cynuræans in Arcadia Gortys, and Thisoa near Mount Lycæus, and Lycæatæ, and Aliphera. And of those which were ranked with Orchomenus Thisoa, and Methydrium, and Teuthis, and moreover the town called Tripolis, and Dipœna, and Nonacris. And the rest of Arcadia fell in with the general plan, and zealously gathered into Megalopolis. The people of Lycæatæ and Tricolonus and Lycosura and Trapezus were the only Arcadians that changed their minds, and, as they did not agree to leave their old cities, some of them were forced into Megalopolis against their will, and the people of Trapezus evacuated the Peloponnese altogether, all that is that were not killed by the Arcadians in their fierce anger, and those that got away safe sailed to Pontus, and were received as colonists by those who dwelt at Trapezus on the Euxine, seeing that they came from the mother-city and bare the same name. But the people of Lycosura though they had refused compliance yet, as they had fled for refuge to their temple, were spared from awe of Demeter and Proserpine. And of the other towns which I have mentioned some are altogether without inhabitants in our day, and others are villages under Megalopolis, as Gortys, Dipœna, Thisoa near Orchomenus, Methydrium, Teuthis, Calliæ, and Helisson. And Pallantium was the only town in that day that seemed to find the deity mild. But Aliphera has continued a town from of old up to this day.
Megalopolis was colonized a year and a few months after the reverse of the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra, when Phrasiclides was Archon at Athens, in the second year of the 102nd Olympiad, when Damon of Thuria was victor in the course. And the people of Megalopolis, after being enrolled in alliance with Thebes, had nothing to fear from the Lacedæmonians. So they thought. But when the Thebans commenced what is called the Sacred War and the people of Phocis attacked them, who were on the borders of Bœotia, and had plenty of money as they had seized on the temple stores at Delphi, then the Lacedæmonians in their zeal tried to drive out the people of Megalopolis and the other Arcadians, but as they stoutly defended themselves, and were openly assisted by their neighbours, nothing very remarkable happened on either side. But the hostility between the Arcadians and the Lacedæmonians tended to increase greatly the power of the Macedonians and Philip the son of Amyntas, as neither at Chæronea nor again in Thessaly did the Arcadians fight on the side of the Greeks. And no long time after Aristodemus seized the chief power in Megalopolis. He was a Phigalian by race and the son of Artylas, but had been adopted by Tritæus, one of the leading men in Megalopolis. This Aristodemus, in spite of his seizing the chief power, was yet called Good man and True. For when he was in power the Lacedæmonians marched with an army into the district of Megalopolis under Acrotatus, the eldest of the sons of their king Cleomenes—I have already given his genealogy and that of all the kings of Sparta—and in a fierce battle that ensued, in which many were slain on both sides, the men of Megalopolis were victorious, and among the Spartans who fell was Acrotatus, who thus lost his chance of succession. And two generations after the death of Aristodemus Lydiades seized the chief power: he was of no obscure family, and by nature very ambitious, (as he showed himself afterwards), and yet a patriot. For he was very young when he had the chief power, and when he came to years of discretion he voluntarily abdicated his power, though it was quite firmly established. And, when the people of Megalopolis joined the Achæan League, Lydiades was held in such high honour, both by his own city and by all the Achæans, that his fame was equal to that of Aratus. And again the Lacedæmonians in full force under the king of the other family, Agis the son of Eudamidas, marched against Megalopolis, with a larger and better-equipped army than that which Acrotatus had gathered together, and defeated the people of Megalopolis who came out to meet them, and bringing a mighty battering-ram against the walls gave the tower a strong shake, and the next day hoped to batter it down all together. But the North Wind was it seems destined to be a benefactor to all the Greeks, for it shattered most of the Persian ships at the rocks called Sepiades,[33] and the same Wind prevented the capture of Megalopolis, for it broke in pieces Agis’ battering-ram by a strong continuous and irresistible blast. This Agis, whom the North Wind thus prevented taking Megalopolis, is the same who was driven out of Pellene in Achaia by the Sicyonians under Aratus[34] and who afterwards died at Mantinea. And no long time afterwards Cleomenes the son of Leonidas took Megalopolis in time of peace. And some of the inhabitants bravely defending their city in the night were driven out, and Lydiades fell in the action fighting in a manner worthy of his renown: and Philopœmen the son of Craugis saved about two-thirds of the lads and grown men, and fled with the women to Messenia. And Cleomenes slew all he captured, and rased the city to the ground, and burnt it with fire. How the people of Megalopolis recovered their city, and what they did after their restoration to it, I shall narrate when I come to Philopœmen. And the Lacedæmonian nation had no share in the sufferings of the people of Megalopolis, for Cleomenes had changed the constitution from a kingdom to an autocracy.
As I have before said, the boundary between the districts of Megalopolis and Heræa is the source of the river Buphagus, named they say after the hero Buphagus, the son of Iapetus and Thornax. There is also a Thornax in Laconia. And they have a tradition that Artemis slew Buphagus with an arrow at the mountain Pholoe because he attempted her chastity.
[33] See Herodotus vii. 188, 189.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
And as you go from the sources of the Buphagus you will first come to a place called Maratha, and next to Gortys, a village in our day but formerly a town. There is there a temple of Æsculapius in Pentelican marble, his statue has no beard, there is also a statue of Hygiea, both statues are by Scopas. And the people of the place say that Alexander the son of Philip offered his breastplate and spear to Æsculapius, in my day the breastplate was still to be seen and the tip of the spear.