Description of Greece

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.