CHAPTER XLVII.
And the statue now at Tegea of Athene, called Hippia by the Manthurii, because (according to their tradition) in the fight between the gods and the giants the goddess drove the chariot of Enceladus, though among the other Greeks and Peloponnesians the title Alea has prevailed, was taken from the Manthurii. On one side of the statue of Athene stands Æsculapius, on the other Hygiea in Pentelican marble, both by the Parian Scopas. And the most notable votive offerings in the temple are the hide of the Calydonian boar, which is rotten with lapse of time and nearly devoid of hair, and some fetters hung up partly destroyed by rust, which the captives of the Lacedæmonians wore when they dug in the district of Tegea. And there is the bed of Athene, and an effigy of Auge to imitate a painting, and the armour of Marpessa, called the Widow, a woman of Tegea, of whom I shall speak hereafter. She was a priestess of Athene when a girl, how long I do not know but not after she grew to womanhood. And the altar they say was made for the goddess by Melampus the son of Amythaon: and on the altar are representations of Rhea and the Nymph Œnoe with Zeus still a babe, and on each side 4 Nymphs, on the one side Glauce and Neda and Thisoa and Anthracia, and on the other Ida and Hagno and Alcinoe and Phrixa. There are also statues of the Muses and Mnemosyne.
And not far from the temple is a mound of earth, constituting a race-course, where they hold games which they call Aleæa from Athene Alea, and Halotia because they took most of the Lacedæmonians alive in the battle. And there is a spring towards the north of the temple, near which they say Auge was violated by Hercules, though their legend differs from that of Hecatæus about her. And about 3 stades from this spring is the temple of Hermes called Æpytus.
At Tegea there is also a temple to Athene Poliatis, which once every year the priest enters. They call it the temple of Protection, and say that it was a boon of Athene to Cepheus, the son of Aleus, that Tegea should never be captured, and they say that the goddess cut off one of the locks of Medusa, and gave it him as a protection for the city. They have also the following legend about Artemis Hegemone. Aristomelidas the ruler at Orchomenus in Arcadia, being enamoured of a maiden of Tegea, got her somehow or other into his power, and committed the charge of her to one Chronius. And she before being conducted to the tyrant slew herself in modesty and fear. And Artemis stirred up Chronius in a dream against Aristomelidas, and he slew him and fled to Tegea and built there a temple to Artemis.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
In the market-place, which is in shape very like a brick, is a temple of Aphrodite called the Brick Aphrodite, and a stone statue of the goddess. And there are two pillars, on one of which are effigies of Antiphanes and Crisus and Tyronidas and Pyrrhias, who are held in honour to this day as legislators for Tegea, and on the other pillar Iasius, with his left hand on a horse and in his right hand a branch of palm. He won they say the horserace at Olympia, when Hercules the Theban established the Olympian games. Why a crown of wild olive was given to the victor at Olympia I have shown in my account of Elis, and why of laurel at Delphi I shall show hereafter. And at the Isthmian games pine, at the Nemean games parsley, were wont to be the prize, as we know from the cases of Palæmon and Archemorus. But most games have a crown of palm as the prize, and everywhere the palm is put into the right hand of the victor. The beginning of this custom was as follows. When Theseus was returning from Crete he instituted games they say to Apollo at Delos, and himself crowned the victors with palm. This was they say the origin of the custom, and Homer has mentioned the palm in Delos in that part of the Odyssey where Odysseus makes his supplication to the daughter of Alcinous.[45]
There is also a statue of Ares called Gynæcothœnas in the market-place at Tegea, graven on a pillar. For in the Laconian war, at the first invasion of Charillus the king of the Lacedæmonians, the women took up arms, and lay in ambush under the hill called in our day Phylactris. And when the armies engaged, and the men on both sides exhibited splendid bravery, then they say the women appeared on the scene, and caused the rout of the Lacedæmonians, and Marpessa, called the Widow, excelled all the other women in daring, and among other Spartans Charillus was taken prisoner, and was released without ransom, upon swearing to the people of Tegea that he would never again lead a Lacedæmonian army to Tegea, which oath he afterwards violated. And the women privately sacrificed to Ares independently of the men for the victory, and gave no share of the flesh of the victim to the men. That is why Ares was called Gynæcothœnas (i.e. Women’s Feast). There is also an altar and square statue of Adult Zeus. Square statues the Arcadians seem greatly to delight in. There are also here the tombs of Tegeates the son of Lycaon, and Mæra the wife of Tegeates, who they say was the daughter of Atlas, and is mentioned by Homer[46] in Odysseus’ account to Alcinous of his journey to Hades and the souls he saw there. And in the market-place at Tegea there is a temple of Ilithyia, and a statue called Auge on her knees, and the tradition is that Aleus ordered Nauplius to take his daughter Auge and drown her in the sea, and as she was being led there she fell on her knees, and gave birth to a son on the spot where is now the temple of Ilithyia. This tradition differs from another one, which states that Auge gave birth to Telephus unbeknown to her father, and that he was exposed on Mount Parthenium and suckled by a doe, though this last part of the tradition is also recorded by the people of Tegea. And near the temple of Ilithyia is an altar to Earth, and close to the altar is a pillar in white stone, on which is a statue of Polybius the son of Lycortas, and on another pillar is Elatus one of the sons of Arcas.
[45] Odyssey, vi. 162 sq.
[46] Odyssey, xi. 326.