Description of Greece

Farther on from here is the grave of the Sicyonians who were killed at Pellene, at Dyme of the Achaeans, in Megalopolis and at Sellasia.[*](222 B.C.) Their story I will relate more fully presently. By the gate they have a spring in a cave, the water of which does not rise out of the earth, but flows down from the roof of the cave. For this reason it is called the Dripping Spring.

On the modern citadel is a sanctuary of Fortune of the Height, and after it one of the Dioscuri. Their images and that of Fortune are of wood. On the stage of the theater built under the citadel is a statue of a man with a shield, who they say is Aratus, the son of Cleinias. After the theater is a temple of Dionysus. The god is of gold and ivory, and by his side are Bacchanals of white marble. These women they say are sacred to Dionysus and maddened by his inspiration. The Sicyonians have also some images which are kept secret. These one night in each year they carry to the temple of Dionysus from what they call the Cosmeterium (Tiring-room), and they do so with lighted torches and native hymns.

The first is the one named Baccheus, set up by Androdamas, the son of Phlias, and this is followed by the one called Lysius (Deliverer), brought from Thebes by the Theban Phanes at the command of the Pythian priestess. Phanes came to Sicyon when Aristomachus, the son of Cleodaeus, failed to understand the oracle[*](I To wait for “the third fruit,” i.e. the third generation. It was interpreted to mean the third year.) given him, and therefore failed to return to the Peloponnesus. As you walk from the temple of Dionysus to the market-place you see on the right a temple of Artemis of the lake. A look shows that the roof has fallen in, but the inhabitants cannot tell whether the image has been removed or how it was destroyed on the spot.

Within the market-place is a sanctuary of Persuasion; this too has no image. The worship of Persuasion was established among them for the following reason. When Apollo and Artemis had killed Pytho they came to Aegialea to obtain purification. Dread coming upon them at the place now named Fear, they turned aside to Carmanor in Crete, and the people of Aegialea were smitten by a plague. When the seers bade them propitiate Apollo and Artemis,

they sent seven boys and seven maidens as suppliants to the river Sythas. They say that the deities, persuaded by these, came to what was then the citadel, and the place that they reached first is the sanctuary of Persuasion. Conformable with this story is the ceremony they perform at the present day; the children go to the Sythas at the feast of Apollo, and having brought, as they pretend, the deities to the sanctuary of Persuasion, they say that they take them back again to the temple of Apollo. The temple stands in the modern market-place, and was originally, it is said, made by Proetus, because in this place his daughters recovered from their madness.

It is also said that in this temple Meleager dedicated the spear with which he slew the boar. There is also a story that the flutes of Marsyas are dedicated here. When the Silenus met with his disaster, the river Marsyas carried the flutes to the Maeander; reappearing in the Asopus they were cast ashore in the Sicyonian territory and given to Apollo by the shepherd who found them. I found none of these offerings still in existence, for they were destroyed by fire when the temple was burnt. The temple that I saw, and its image, were dedicated by Pythocles.