Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

Pallantium next demands my attention, both to describe what is worthy of record in it, and to show why the elder Antonine made it a town instead of a village, and also free and exempt from taxation. They say that Evander was the best of the Arcadians both in council and war, and that he was the son of Hermes by a Nymph the daughter of Lado, and that he was sent with a force of Arcadians from Pallantium to form a colony, which he founded near the river Tiber. And part of what is now Rome was inhabited by Evander and the Arcadians who accompanied him, and was called Pallantium in remembrance of the town in Arcadia. And in process of time it changed its name into Palatium. It was for these reasons that Pallantium received its privileges from the Roman Emperor. This Antonine, who bestowed such favours on Pallantium, imposed no war on the Romans willingly, but when the Mauri, (the most important tribe of independent Libyans, who were Nomads and much more formidable than the Scythians, as they did not travel in waggons but they and their wives rode on horseback,) commenced a war with Rome, he drove them out of all their territory into the most remote parts, and compelled them to retire from Libya to Mount Atlas and to the neighbourhood of Mount Atlas. He also took away from the Brigantes in Britain most of their territory, because they had attacked the Genunii who were Roman subjects. And when Cos and Rhodes cities of the Lycians and Carians were destroyed by a violent earthquake, the Emperor Antonine restored them by large expenditure of money and by his zeal in re-peopling them. As to the grants of money which he made to the Greeks and barbarians who stood in need of them, and his magnificent works in Greece and Ionia and Carthage and Syria, all this has been minutely described by others. This Emperor left another token of his liberality. Those subject nations who had the privilege of being Roman citizens, but whose sons were reckoned as Greeks, had the option by law of leaving their money to those who were no relations, or letting it swell the wealth of the Emperor. But Antonine allowed them to leave their property to their sons, preferring to exhibit philanthropy rather than to maintain a law which brought in money to the revenue. This Emperor the Romans called Pius from the honour he paid to the gods. I think he might also justly have borne the title of the elder Cyrus, Father of mankind. He was succeeded by his son Antonine, who fought against the Germans, the most numerous and warlike barbarians in Europe, and subdued the Sauromatæ who had commenced an iniquitous war.

CHAPTER XLIV.

To return to our account of Arcadia, there is a road from Megalopolis to Pallantium and Tegea, leading to what is called the Mound. On this road is a suburb of Megalopolis, called Ladocea from Ladocus the son of Echemus. And next comes Hæmoniæ, which in ancient times was a town founded by Hæmon the son of Lycaon, and is still called Hæmoniæ. And next it on the right are the ruins of Oresthasium, and the pillars of a temple to Artemis surnamed the Priestess. And on the direct road from Hæmoniæ is the place called Aphrodisium, and next to it Athenæum, on the left of which is a temple of Athene and stone statue of the goddess. About 20 stades from Athenæum are the ruins of Asea, and the hill which was formerly the citadel has still remains of walls. And about 5 stades from Asea is the Alpheus a little away from the road, and near the road is the source of the Eurotas. And near the source of the Alpheus is a temple of the Mother of the Gods without a roof, and two lions in stone. And the Eurotas joins the Alpheus, and for about 20 stades they flow together in a united stream, till they are lost in a cavity and come up again, the Eurotas in Laconia, the Alpheus at Pegæ in Megalopolis. There is also a road from Asea leading up to Mount Boreum, on the top of which are traces of a temple. The tradition is that Odysseus on his return from Ilium built it to Poseidon and Preserver Athene.

What is called the Mound is the boundary for the districts of Megalopolis Tegea and Pallantium, and as you turn off from it to the left is the plain of Pallantium. In Pallantium there is a temple, and a stone statue of Pallas and another of Evander, and a temple to Proserpine the daughter of Demeter, and at no great distance a statue of Polybius. The hill above the town was used of old as the citadel, and on the top of it are remains even to our day of a temple of the gods called Pure, oaths by whom are still accounted most weighty. They do not know the particular names of these gods, or if they know they will not tell them. But one might conjecture that they were called Pure, because Pallas did not sacrifice to them in the same way as his father did to Lycæan Zeus.

And on the right of what is called the Mound is the Manthuric plain on the borders of Tegea, being indeed only 50 stades from Tegea. There is a small hill on the right of the road called Cresium, on which is the temple of Aphneus. For according to the legend of the people of Tegea Ares had an intrigue with Aerope, the daughter of Cepheus the son of Aleus, and she died in childbirth, and the baby still clung to his mother though she was dead, and sucked from her breasts a plentiful supply of milk, and as Ares had caused this they called the god Aphneus, and the boy was called they say Aeropus. And on the road to Tegea is the well called Leuconius, so called from Leucone, (who they say was a daughter of Aphidas), whose tomb is not far from Tegea.

CHAPTER XLV.

The people of Tegea say that their district got its name in the days of Tegeates the son of Lycaon, and that the inhabitants were distributed into 8 parishes, Gareatæ, Phylaces, Caryatæ, Corythes, Potachidæ, Œatæ, Manthyres, and Echeuethes, and that in the reign of Aphidas a ninth parish was formed, called after him Aphidas. The founder of the town in our day was Aleus. The people of Tegea besides the public events which they had a share in in common with all the Arcadians, as the war against Ilium, and the war with the Persians, and the battle with the Lacedæmonians at Dipæa, had special renown of their own from the following circumstances. Ancæus the son of Lycurgus, though wounded, sustained the attack of the Calydonian boar, and Atalanta shot at it and was the first to hit it, and for this prowess its head and hide were given her as trophies. And when the Heraclidæ returned to the Peloponnese, Echemus of Tegea, the son of Aeropus, had a combat with Hyllus and beat him. And the people of Tegea were the first Arcadians who beat the Lacedæmonians who fought against them, and took most of them captive.

The ancient temple at Tegea of Athene Alea was built by Aleus, but in after times the people at Tegea built the goddess a great and magnificent temple. For the former one was entirely consumed by fire which spread all over it, when Diophantus was Archon at Athens, in the second year of the 96th Olympiad, in which Eupolemus of Elis won the prize in the course. The present one far excels all the temples in the Peloponnese for beauty and size. The architecture of the first row of pillars is Doric, that of the second row is Corinthian, and that of the pillars outside the temple is Ionic. The architect I found on inquiry was Scopas the Parian, who made statues in various parts of old Greece, and also in Ionia and Caria. On the gables is represented the hunting of the boar of Calydon, on one side of the boar, nearly in the centre of the piece, stand Atalanta and Meleager and Theseus and Telamon and Peleus and Pollux and Iolaus, the companion of Hercules in most of his Labours, and the sons of Thestius, Prothous and Cometes, the brothers of Althæa: and on the other side of the boar Ancæus already wounded and Epochus supporting him as he drops his weapon, and near him Castor, and Amphiaraus the son of Œcles, and besides them Hippothous the son of Cercyon, the son of Agamedes, the son of Stymphelus, and lastly Pirithous. On the gables behind is a representation of the single combat between Telephus and Achilles on the plain of Caicus.

CHAPTER XLVI.

And the ancient statue of Athene Alea, and together with it the tusks of the Calydonian boar, were carried away by the Emperor Augustus, after his victory over Antony and his allies, among whom were all the Arcadians but the Mantineans. Augustus does not seem to have commenced the practice of carrying off votive offerings and statues of the gods from conquered nations, but to have merely followed a long-established custom. For after the capture of Ilium, when the Greeks divided the spoil, the statue of Household Zeus was given to Sthenelus the son of Capaneus: and many years afterwards, when the Dorians had migrated to Sicily, Antiphemus, the founder of Gela, sacked Omphace a town of the Sicani, and carried from thence to Gela a statue made by Dædalus. And we know that Xerxes the son of Darius, the king of the Persians, besides what he carried off from Athens, took from Brauron a statue of Brauronian Artemis, and moreover charged the Milesians with cowardice in the sea-fight against the Athenians at Salamis, and took from them the brazen Apollo at Branchidæ, which a long time afterwards Seleucus sent back to the Milesians. And the statues taken from the Argives at Tiryns are now, one in the temple of Hera, the other in the temple of Apollo at Elis. And the people of Cyzicus having forced the people of Proconnesus to settle with them took from them a statue of the Dindymene Mother. The statue generally was of gold, but the head instead of ivory was made with the teeth of Hippopotamuses. So the Emperor Augustus merely followed a long established custom usual both among Greeks and barbarians. And you may see the statue of Athene Alea in the Forum at Rome built by Augustus. It is throughout of ivory and the workmanship of Endœus. Those who busy themselves about such curiosities say that one of the tusks of the boar was broken off, and the remaining one was suspended as a votive offering in Cæsar’s gardens in the temple of Dionysus. It is about 2½ feet long.