Description of Greece

the women, they say, came on the scene and put the Lacedaemonians to flight. Marpessa, surnamed Choera, surpassed, they say, the other women in daring, while Charillus himself was one of the Spartan prisoners. The story goes on to say that he was set free without ransom, swore to the Tegeans that the Lacedaemonians would never again attack Tegea, and then broke his oath; that the women offered to Ares a sacrifice of victory on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname.

There is also an altar of Zeus Teleius (Full-grown), with a square image, a shape of which the Arcadians seem to me to be exceedingly fond. There are also here tombs of Tegeates, the son of Lycaon, and of Maera, the wife of Tegeates. They say that Maera was a daughter of Atlas, and Homer makes mention of her in the passage[*](Hom. Od. 11.326) where Odysseus tells to Alcinous his journey to Hades, and of those whose ghosts he beheld there.

The Tegeans surname Eileithyia, a temple of whom, with art image, they have in their market-place, Auge on her knees, saying that Aleus handed over his daughter to Nauplius with the order to take and drown her in the sea. As she was being carried along, they say, she fell on her knees and so gave birth to her son, at the place where is the sanctuary of Eileithyia. This story is different from another, that Auge was brought to bed without her father's knowing it, and that Telephus was exposed on Mount Parthenius, the abandoned child being suckled by a deer. This account is equally current among the people of Tegea.

Close to the sanctuary of Eileithyia is an altar of Earth, next to which is a slab of white marble. On this is carved Polybius, the son of Lycortas, while on another slab is Elatus, one of the sons of Arcas.

Not far from the market-place is a theater, and near it are pedestals of bronze statues, but the statues themselves no longer exist. On one pedestal is an elegiac inscription that the statue is that of Philopoemen. The memory of this Philopoemen is most carefully cherished by the Greeks, both for the wisdom he showed and for his many brave achievements.