Description of Greece

As to Rhadamanthys himself, Homer says, in the talk of Proteus with Menelaus,[*](Hom. Od. 4.564) that Menelaus would go to the Elysian plain, but that Rhadamanthys was already arrived there. Cinaethon too in his poem represents Rhadamanthys as the son of Hephaestus, Hephaestus as a son of Talos, and Talos as a son of Cres. The legends of Greece generally have different forms, and this is particularly true of genealogy.

At Tegea the images of the Lord of Streets are four in number, one set up by each of the tribes. The names given to the tribes are Clareotis, Hippothoetis, Apolloniatis, and Athaneatis; they are called after the lots cast by Arcas to divide the land among his sons, and after Hippothous, the son of Cercyon.

There is also at Tegea a temple of Demeter and the Maid, whom they surname the Fruit-bringers, and hard by is one of Aphrodite called Paphian. The latter was built by Laodice, who was descended, as I have already said,[*](See Paus. 8.5.3.) from Agapenor, who led the Arcadians to Troy, and it was in Paphos that she dwelt. Not far from it are two sanctuaries of Dionysus, an altar of the Maid, and a temple of Apollo with a gilded image.

The artist was Cheirisophus; he was a Cretan by race, but his date and teacher we do not know. The residence of Daedalus with Minos at Cnossus secured for the Cretans a reputation for the making of wooden images also, which lasted for a long period. By the Apollo stands Cheirisophus in stone.

The Tegeans also have what they call a Common Hearth of the Arcadians. Here there is an image of Heracles, and on his thigh is represented a wound received in the first fight with the sons of Hippocoon. The lofty place, on which are most of the altars of the Tegeans, is called the place of Zeus Clarius (Of Lots), and it is plain that the god got his surname from the lots cast for the sons of Arcas. Here the Tegeans celebrate a feast every year.

It is said that once at the time of the feast they were invaded by the Lacedaemonians. As it was snowing, these were chilled, and thus distressed by their armour, but the Tegeans, without their enemies knowing it, lighted a fire. So untroubled by the cold they donned, they say, their armour, went out against the Lacedaemonians, and had the better of the engagement. I also saw in Tegea:—the house of Aleus, the tomb of Echemus, and the fight between Echemus and Hyllus carved in relief upon a slab.

On the left of the road as you go from Tegea to Laconia there is an altar of Pan, and likewise one of Lycaean Zeus. The foundations, too, of sanctuaries are still there. These altars are two stades from the wall; and about seven stades farther on is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Lady of the Lake, with an image of ebony. The fashion of the workmanship is what the Greeks call Aeginetan. Some ten stades farther on are the ruins of a temple of Artemis Cnaceatis.