Description of Greece

There is also at Pellene a sanctuary of Apollo, the Strangers' God, and the image is made of bronze. They hold in honor of Apollo games that they call Theoxenia, with money as the prizes of victory, the competitors being the natives. Near the sanctuary of Apollo is a temple of Artemis, the goddess being represented in the attitude of shooting. In the market-place is built a tank, and for bathing they use rain-water, since for drinking there are a few springs beneath the city. The place where the springs are they name Glyceiae ( Sweet Springs).

There is an old gymnasium chiefly given up to the exercises of the youths. No one may be enrolled on the register of citizens before he has been on the register of youths. Here stands a man of Pellene called Promachus, the son of Dryon, who won prizes in the pancratium, one at Olympia, three at the Isthmus and two at Nemea. The Pellenians made two statues of him, dedicating one at Olympia and one in the gymnasium; the latter is of stone, not bronze.

It is said too that when a war arose between Corinth and Pellene, Promachus killed a vast number of the enemy. It is said that he also overcame at Olympia Pulydamas of Scotusa, this being the occasion when, after his safe return home from the king of Persia, he came for the second time to compete in the Olympic games. The Thessalians, however, refuse to admit that Pulydamas was beaten; one of the pieces of evidence they bring forward is a verse about Pulydamas:—

1. Scotoessa, nurse of unbeaten Pulydamas.

Be this as it may, the people of Pellene hold Promachus in the highest honor. But Chaeron, who carried off two prizes for wrestling at the Isthmian games and four at the Olympian, they will not even mention by name. This I believe is because he overthrew the constitution of Pellene, and received from Alexander, the son of Philip, the most invidious of all gifts, to be set up as tyrant of one's own fatherland.

Pellene has also a sanctuary of Eileithyia, which is situated in the lesser portion of the city. What is called the Poseidium in more ancient days was a township, but to-day it is uninhabited. This Poseidium is below the gymnasium, and down to the present day it has been considered sacred to Poseidon.

About sixty stades distant from Pellene is the Mysaeum, a sanctuary of the Mysian Demeter. It is said that it was founded by Mysius, a man of Argos, who according to Argive tradition gave Demeter a welcome in his home. There is a grove in the Mysaeum, containing trees of every kind, and in it rises a copious supply of water from springs. Here they also celebrate a seven days' festival in honor of Demeter.

On the third day of the festival the men withdraw from the sanctuary, and the women are left to perform on that night the ritual that custom demands. Not only men are excluded, but even male dogs. On the following day the men come to the sanctuary, and the men and the women laugh and jeer at one another in turn.

At no great distance from the Mysacum is a sanctuary of Asclepius, called Cyrus, where cures of patients are effected by the god. Here too there is a copious supply of water, and at the largest of the springs stands the image of Asclepius. Rivers come down from the mountains above Pellene, the one on the side nearest Aegeira being called Crius, after, it is said, a Titan of the same name.

There is another river called Crius, which rises in Mount Sipylus and is a tributary of the Hermus. Where the territory of Pellene borders on that of Sicyon is a Pellenian river Sythas, the last of the Achaean rivers, which flows into the Sicyonian sea.

The part of Arcadia that lies next to the Argive land is occupied by Tegeans and Mantineans, who with the rest of the Arcadians inhabit the interior of the Peloponnesus. The first people within the peninsula are the Corinthians, living on the Isthmus, and their neighbors on the side sea-wards are the Epidaurians. Along Epidaurus, Troezen, and Nermion, come the Argolic Gulf and the coast of Argolis; next to Argolis come the vassals of Lacedaemon, and these border on Messenia, which comes down to the sea at Mothone, Pylus and Cyparissiae.

On the side of Lechaeum the Corinthians are bounded by the Sicyonians, who dwell in the extreme part of Argolis on this side. After Sicyon come the Achaeans who live along the coast at the other end of the Peloponnesus, opposite the Echinadian islands, dwell the Eleans. The land of Elis, on the side of Olympia and the mouth of the Alpheius, borders on Messenia; on the side of Achaia it borders on the land of Dyme.

These that I have mentioned extend to the sea, but the Arcadians are shut off from the sea on every side and dwell in the interior. Hence, when they went to Troy, so Homer says, they did not sail in their own ships, but in vessels lent by Agamemnon.

The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However, in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows, and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asius the poet says of him:—

1. The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountains
2. Black earth gave up, that the race of mortals might exist.