Description of Greece

There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially at the narrow part of the road. As to the Molurian, it is said that from it Ino flung her self into the sea with Melicertes, the younger of her children. Learchus, the elder of them, had been killed by his father. One account is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that he vented on Ino and her children unbridled rage when he learned that the famine which befell the Orchomenians and the supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents from heaven, but that Ino, the step-mother, had intrigued for all these things.

Then it was that she fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they say, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors were offered to Melicertes, then renamed Palaemon, including the celebration of the Isthmian games. The Molurian dock they thought sacred to Leucothea and Palaemon; but those after it they consider accursed, in that Sciron, who dwelt by them, used to cast into the sea all the strangers he met. A tortoise used to swim under the rocks to seize those that fell in. Sea tortoises are like land tortoises except in size and for their feet, which are like those of seals. Retribution for these deeds overtook Sciron, for he was cast into the same sea by Theseus.

On the top of the mountain is a temple of Zeus surnamed Aphesius (Releaser). It is said that on the occasion of the drought that once afflicted the Greeks Aeacus in obedience to an oracular utterance sacrificed in Aegina to Zeus God of all the Greeks, and Zeus rained and ended the drought, gaining thus the name Aphesius. Here there are also images of Aphrodite, Apollo, and Pan.

Farther on is the tomb of Eurystheus. The story is that he fled from Attica after the battle with the Heracleidae and was killed here by Iolaus. When you have gone down from this road you see a sanctuary of Apollo Latous, after which is the boundary between Megara and Corinth, where legend says that Hyllus, son of Heracles, fought a duel with the Arcadian Echemus.

The Corinthian land is a portion of the Argive, and is named after Corinthus. That Corinthus was a son of Zeus I have never known anybody say seriously except the majority of the Corinthians. Eumelus, the son of Amphilytus,[*](8th cent. B.C.) of the family called Bacchidae, who is said to have composed the epic poem, says in his Corinthian History (if indeed the history be his) that Ephyra, the daughter of Oceanus, dwelt first in this land; that afterwards Marathon, the son of Epopeus, the son of Aloeus, the son of Helius (Sun), fleeing from the lawless violence of his father migrated to the sea coast of Attica; that on the death of Epopeus he came to Peloponnesus, divided his kingdom among his sons, and returned to Attica; and that Asopia was renamed after Sicyon, and Ephyraea after Corinthus.

Corinth is no longer inhabited by any of the old Corinthians, but by colonists sent out by the Romans. This change is due to the Achaean League.[*](A league of states in the northern Peloponnesus. It was most influential in the second half of the third century B.C. Founded 280 B.C.) The Corinthians, being members of it, joined in the war against the Romans, which Critolaus, when appointed general of the Achaeans, brought about by persuading to revolt both the Achaeans and the majority of the Greeks outside the Peloponnesus. When the Romans won the war, they carried out a general disarmament of the Greeks[*](146 B.C.) and dismantled the walls of such cities as were fortified. Corinth was laid waste by Mummius, who at that time commanded the Romans in the field, and it is said that it was afterwards refounded by Caesar,[*](44 B.C.) who was the author of the present constitution of Rome. Carthage, too, they say, was refounded in his reign.