CHAPTER VIII.
1. Arcadia is situated in the middle of Peloponnesus, and contains the greatest portion of the mountainous tract in that country. Its largest mountain is Cyllene.[266] Its perpendicular height, according to some writers, is 20, according to others, about 15 stadia.
The Arcadian nations, as the Azanes, and Parrhasii, and other similar tribes, seem to be the most ancient people of Greece.[267]
In consequence of the complete devastation of this country, it is unnecessary to give a long description of it. The cities, although formerly celebrated, have been destroyed by continual wars; and the husbandmen abandoned the country at the time that most of the cities were united in that called Megalopolis (the Great City). At present Megalopolis itself has undergone the fate expressed by the comic poet;
“the great city is a great desert.”
There are rich pastures for cattle, and particularly for horses and asses, which are used as stallions. The race of Arcadian horses, as well as the Argolic and Epidaurian, is preferred before all others. The uninhabited tracts of country in Ætolia and Acarnania are not less adapted to the breeding of horses than Thessaly.
2. Mantinea owes its fame to Epaminondas, who conquered the Lacedæmonians there in a second battle, in which he lost his life.[268]
This city, together with Orchomenus, Heræa, Cleitor, Pheneus, Stymphalus, Mænalus, Methydrium, Caphyeis, and Cynætha, either exist no longer, or traces and signs only of their existence are visible. There are still some remains of Tegea, and the temple of the Alæan Minerva remains. The latter is yet held in some little veneration, as well as the temple of the Lycæan Jupiter on the Lycæan mountain. But the places mentioned by the poet, as
“Rhipe, and Stratia, and the windy Enispe,”