Description of Greece

Shortly afterwards Cleomenes the son of Leonidas seized Megalopolis during a truce. Of the Megalopolitans some fell at once on the night of the capture in the defence of their country, when Lydiades too met his death in he battle,[*](226 B.C) fighting nobly; others, about two-thirds of those of military age along with the women and children, escaped to Messenia with Philopoemen the son of Craugis.

But those who were caught in the city were massacred by Cleomenes, who razed it to the ground and burnt it. How the Megalopolitans restored their city, and their achievements on their return, will be set forth in my account of Philopoemen. The Lacedaemonian people were in no way responsible for the disaster to Megalopolis, because Cleomenes had changed their constitution from a kingship to a tyranny.

As I have already related, the boundary between Megalopolis and Heraea is at the source of the river Buphagus. The river got its name, they say, from a hero called Buphagus, the son of Iapetus and Thornax. This is what they call her in Laconia also. They also say that Artemis shot Buphagus on Mount Pholoe because he attempted an unholy sin against her godhead.

As you go from the source of the river, you will reach first a place called Maratha, and after it Gortys, which to-day is a village, but of old was a city. Here there is a temple of Asclepius, made of Pentelic marble, with the god, as a beardless youth, and an image of Health. Scopas was the artist. The natives also say that Alexander the son of Philip dedicated to Asclepius his breastplate and spear. The breastplate and the head of the spear are still there to-day.

Through Gortys flows a river called by those who live around its source the Lusius (Bathing Riuer), because Zeus after his birth was bathed in it; those farther from the source call it the Gortynius after the village. The water of this Gortynius is colder than that of any other river. The Danube, Rhine, Hypanis, Borysthenes, and all rivers the streams of which freeze in winter, as they flow through land on which there is snow the greater part of the time, while the air about them is full of frost, might in my opinion rightly be called wintry;