[1] In antiquity this country was under the mastery of the Ionians, who were sprung from the Athenians; and in antiquity it was called Aegialeia, and the inhabitants Aegialeians, but later it was called Ionia after the Ionians, just as Attica also was called Ionia ¹ after Ion the son of Xuthus. They say that Hellen was the son of Deucalion, and that he was lord of the people between the Peneius and the Asopus in the region of Phthia and gave over his rule to the eldest of his sons, but that he sent the rest of them to different places outside, each to seek a settlement for himself. One of these sons, Dorus, united the Dorians about Parnassus into one state, and at his death left them named after himself; another, Xuthus, who had married the daughter of Erechtheus, founded the Tetrapolis of Attica, consisting of Oenoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorynthus. One of the sons of Xuthus, Achaeus, who had committed involuntary manslaughter, fled to Lacedaemon and brought it about that the people there were called Achaeans; and Ion conquered the Thracians under Eumolpus, and thereby gained such high repute that the Athenians turned over their government to him. At first Ion divided the people into four tribes, but later into four occupations: four he designated as farmers, others as artisans, others as sacred officers, and a fourth group as the guards. And he made several regulations of this kind, and at his death left his own name to the country. But the country had then come to be so populous that the Athenians even sent forth a colony of Ionians to the Peloponnesus, and caused the country which they occupied to be called Ionia after themselves instead of Aegialus; and the men were divided into twelve cities and called Ionians instead of Aegialeians. But after the return of the Heracleidae they were driven out by the Achaeans and went back again to Athens; and from there they sent forth with the Codridae the Ionian colony to Asia, and these founded twelve cities on the seaboard of Caria and Lydia, thus dividing themselves into the same number of parts as the cities they had occupied in the Peloponnesus. Now the Achaeans were Phthiotae in race, but they lived in Lacedaemon; and when the Heracleidae prevailed, the Achaeans were won over by Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, as I have said before, ² attacked the Ionians, and proving themselves more powerful than the Ionians drove them out and took possession of the land themselves; and they kept the division of the country the same as it was when they received it. And they were so powerful that, although the Heracleidae, from whom they had revolted, held the rest of the Peloponnesus, still they held out against one and all, and named the country Achaea. Now from Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued under the rule of kings; then, under a democratic government, they became so famous for their constitutions that the Italiotes, ³ after the uprising against the Pythagoreians, ⁴ actually borrowed most of their usages from the Achaeans. ⁵ And after the battle at Leuctra the Thebans turned over to them the arbitration of the disputes which the cities had with one another; and later, when their league was dissolved by the Macedonians, they gradually recovered themselves. When Pyrrhus made his expedition to Italy, ⁶ four cities came together and began a new league, among which were Patrae and Dyme; ⁷ and then they began to add some of the twelve cities, except Olenus and Helice, the former having refused to join and the latter having been wiped out by a wave from the sea. ⁸

[2] For the sea was raised by an earthquake and it submerged Helice, and also the temple of the Heliconian Poseidon, whom the Ionians ⁹ worship even to this day, offering there ¹⁰ the Pan-Ionian sacrifices. And, as some suppose, Homer recalls this sacrifice when he says: ¹¹ And they infer that the poet lived after the Ionian colonization, since he mentions the Pan-Ionian sacrifice, which the Ionians perform in honor of the Heliconian Poseidon in the country of the Prienians; for the Prienians themselves are also said to be from Helice; and indeed as king for this sacrifice they appoint a Prienian young man to superintend the sacred rites. But still more they base the supposition in question on what the poet says about the bull; for the lonians believe that they obtain omens in connection with this sacrifice only when the bull bellows while being sacrificed. But the opponents of the supposition apply the above-mentioned inferences concerning the bull and the sacrifice to Helice, on the ground that these were customary there and that the poet was merely comparing the rites that were celebrated there. Helice was submerged by the sea two years before the battle at Leuctra. And Eratosthenes says that he himself saw the place, and that the ferrymen say that there was a bronze Poseidon in the strait, standing erect, holding a hippo-campus in his hand, which was perilous for those who fished with nets. And Heracleides ¹² says that the submersion took place by night in his time, and, although the city was twelve stadia distant from the sea, this whole district together with the city was hidden from sight; and two thousand men who had been sent by the Achaeans were unable to recover the dead bodies; and they divided the territory of Helice among the neighbors; and the submersion was the result of the anger of Poseidon, for the lonians who had been driven out of Helice sent men to ask the inhabitants of Helice particularly for the statue of Poseidon, or, if not that, for the model of the temple; and when the inhabitants refused to give either, the Ionians sent word to the general council of the Achaeans; but although the assembly voted favorably, yet even so the inhabitants of Helice refused to obey; and the submersion resulted the following winter; but the Achaeans later gave the model of the temple to the lonians. Hesiod ¹³ mentions still another Helice, in Thessaly.

[3] Now for twenty ¹⁴ years the Achaeans continued to have a general secretary and two generals, elected annually; and with them a common council was convened at one place (it was called Amarium), ¹⁵ in which these, as did the Ionians before them, dealt with affairs of common interest; then they decided to elect only one general. And when Aratus was general he took the Acrocorinthus away from Antigonus ¹⁶ and added the city of Corinth to the Achaean League, just as he had added his native city; and he also took over the Megarians; and breaking up the tyrannies in the several cities he made the peoples who were thus set free members of the Achaean League. And he set the Peloponnesus free from its tyrannies, so that Argos, Hermion, Phlius, and Megalopolis, the largest city in Arcadia, were added to the League; and it was at this time that the League reached the height of its power. It was the time when the Romans, after their expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily, ¹⁷ made their expedition against the Galatae ¹⁸ who lived in the region of the Padus River. But although the Achaean League persisted rather firmly until the time of the generalship of Philopoemen, yet it was gradually dissolved, since by this time the Romans were in possession of the whole of Greece, and they did not deal with the several states in the same way, but wished to preserve some and to destroy others. Then he ¹⁹ tells the cause of his enlarging upon the subject of the Achaeans, saying that, although they increased in power to the point of surpassing even the Lacedaemonians, they are not as well known as they deserve to be.

[4] The order of the places in which the Achaeans settled, after dividing the country into twelve parts, is as follows: ²⁰ First after Sicyon lies Pellene; then, second, Aegeira; third, Aegae, which has a temple of Poseidon; fourth, Bura; after Bura, Helice, whither the Ionians fled for refuge after they were conquered in battle by the Achaeans, and whence at last they were expelled; and, after Helice, Aegium and Rhypes and Patrae ²¹ and Pharae; ²² then Olenus, past which flows the Peirus, a large river; then Dyme and Tritaea. ²³ Now the Ionians lived in villages, but the Achaeans founded cities; and to certain of these they later united others, transferring them from the other divisions, as, for example, Aegae to Aegeira (the inhabitants, however, were called Aegaeans), and Olenus to Dyme. Traces of the old settlement of the Olenians are shown between Patrae and Dyme; and here, too, is the notable temple of Asclepius, which is forty stadia distant from Dyme and eighty from Patrae. Of the same name as this Aegae is the Aegae in Euboea; and of the same name as Olenus is the settlement in Aetolia, this too preserving only traces of its former self. Now the poet does not mention the Olenus in Achaea, just as he does not mention several other inhabited places in the region of the Aegialus, although he speaks of them in a rather general way: ²⁴ But he mentions the Aetolian Olenus, when he says: ²⁵ And he speaks of both places called Aegae: the Achaean Aegae, when he says, ²⁶ but when he says, ^{27 28} it is better to take him as meaning the Aegae in Euboea, from which it is probable that also the Aegean Sea got its name; and here too the poet has placed the activities of Poseidon in connection with the Trojan War. Close to the Achaean Aegae flows the Crathis River, which is increased by the waters of two other rivers; and it gets its name from the fact that it is a mixture, ²⁹ as does also the Crathis in Italy.

[5] Each of the twelve divisions consisted of seven or eight communities, so populous was the country. Pellene is situated sixty stadia above the sea, and it is a strong fortress. But there is also a village Pellene, from which come the Pellenic cloaks, which they were also wont to set up as prizes at the games; it lies between Aegium and Pellene. But Pellana is different from these two; it is a Laconian place, and its territory inclines, approximately, towards the territory of Megalopolis. Aegeira is situated on a hill. Bura, which was swallowed up in an, earthquake, is situated above the sea at a distance of about forty stadia; and they say that it was from the spring Sybaris in Bura that the river ³⁰ in Italy got its name. Aega (for Aegae is also called thus) is now uninhabited, and the city ³¹ is in the possession of the people of Aegium. But Aegium has a considerable population. The story is told that Zeus was nursed by a goat there, just as Aratus says: ³² and he goes on to say that ³³ thus clearly indicating that the place is near Olene. Here too is Ceraunia, ³⁴ which is situated on a high rock. These places belong to the people of Aegium, and so does Helice, and the Amarium, where the Achaeans met to deliberate on affairs of common interest. And the Selinus River flows through the territory of Aegium; it bears the same name as the river that flows in Ephesus past the Artemisium, and also the river in the Eleia of today ³⁵ that flows past the plot of land which Xenophon says he bought for Artemis in accordance with an oracle. ³⁶ And there is another Selinus; it flows past the territory of the Hyblaean Megarians, ³⁷ whom the Carthaginians forced to migrate. As for the remaining cities, or divisions, of the Achaeans, one of them, Rhypes, is uninhabited, and the territory called Rhypis was held by the people of Aegium and the people of Pharae. Aeschylus, too, says somewhere: ³⁸ Myscellus, the founder of Croton, was from Rhypes. And Leuctrum too, a deme of Rhypes, belonged to the district of Rhypis. After Rhypes comes Patrae, a noteworthy city; between the two, however, is Rhium (also Antirrhium), ³⁹ which is forty stadia distant from Patrae. And recently the Romans, after their victory at Actium, settled a considerable part of the army at Patrae; and it is exceptionally populous at present, since it is a Roman colony; and it has a fairly good anchoring-place. Next comes Dyme, a city without a harbor, the farthest of all towards the west, a fact from which it takes its name. ⁴⁰ But in earlier times it was called Stratos. The boundary between it and the Eleian country, Buprasium, is formed by the Larisus River, which flows from a mountain. Some writers call this mountain Scollis, but Homer calls it the Olenian Rock. When Antimachus calls Dyme “Cauconian,” some interpret “Cauconian” as an epithet derived from the Cauconians, since the Cauconians extended as far as Dyme, as I have already said above, ⁴¹ but others as derived from a River Caucon, just as Thebes is called “Dircaean” and “Asopian,” Argos “Inacheian,” and Troy “Simuntian.” But shortly before my time Dyme received as colonists a mixed group of people whom Pompey still had left over from the crowd of pirates, after he broke up all piracy and settled some of the pirates at Soli in Cilicia and others in other places—and in particular at Dyme. Phara borders on the territory of Dyme. The people of this Phara are called Phareis, but those of the Messenian city Pharaeatae; and in the territory of Phara is a spring Dirce which bears the same name as the spring at Thebes. But Olenus is deserted; it lies between Patrae and Dyme; and its territory is held by the people of Dyme. Then comes Araxus, the promontory of the Eleian country, one thousand and thirty stadia from the isthmus.

[1] THE Ionians, who were descendants of the Athenians, were, anciently, masters of this country. It was formerly called Aegialeia, and the inhabitants Aegialeans, but in later times, Ionia, from the former people, as Attica had the name of Ionia, from Ion the son of 7uthus.

It is said, that Hellen was the son of Deucalion, and that he governed the country about Phthia between the Peneins and Asopus, and transmitted to his eldest son these dominions, sending the others out of their native country to seek a settlement each of them for himself. Dorus, one of them, settled the Dorians about Parnassus, and when he left them, they bore his name. 7uthus, another, married the daughter of Erechtheus, and was the founder of the Tetrapolis of Attica, which consisted of Oenoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus.

Achaeus, one of the sons of 7uthus, having committed an accidental murder, fled to Lacedaemon, and occasioned the inhabitants to take the name of Achaeans. ¹

Ion, the other son, having vanquished the Thracian army with their leader Eumolpus, obtained so much renown, that the Athenians intrusted him with the government of their state. It was he who first distributed the mass of the people into four tribes, and these again into four classes according to their occupations, husbandmen, artificers, priests, and the fourth, military guards; after having made many more regulations of this kind, he left to the country his own name. It happened at that time that the country had such an abundance of inhabitants, that the Athenians sent out a colony of Ionians to Peloponnesus, and the tract of country which they occupied was called Ionia after their own name, instead of Aegialeia, and the inhabitants Ionians instead of Aegialeans, who were distributed among twelve cities.

After the return of the Heracleidae, these Ionians, being expelled by the Achaeans, returned to Athens, whence, in conjunction with the Codridae, (descendants of Codrus,) they sent cut the Ionian colonists to Asia. ² They founded twelve cities on the sea-coast of Caria and Lydia, having distributed themselves over the country into as many parts as they occupied in Peloponnesus. ³

The Achaeans were Phthiotae by descent, and were settled at Lacedaemon, but when the Heracleidae became masters of the country, having recovered their power under Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, they attacked the Ionians, as I said before, and defeated them. They drove the Ionians out of the country, and took possession of the territory, but retained the same partition of it which they found existing there. They became so powerful, that, although the Heracleidae, from whom they had revolted, occupied the rest of Peloponnesus, yet they defended themselves against them all, and called their own country Achaea.

From Tisamenus to Ogyges they continued to be governed by kings. Afterwards they established a democracy, and acquired so great renown for their political wisdom, that the Italian Greeks, after their dissensions with the Pythagoreans, adopted most of the laws and institutions of the Achaeans. After the battle of Leuctra the Thebans ⁴ committed the disputes of the cities among each other to the arbitration of the Achaeans. At a later period their community was dissolved by the Macedonians, but they recovered by degrees their former power. At the time of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy they began with the union of four cities, among which were Patrae and Dyme. ⁵ They then had an accession of the twelve cities, with the exception of Olenus and Helice; the former refused to join the league; the other was swallowed up by the waves.

[2] For the sea was raised to a great height by an earthquake, and overwhelmed both Helice and the temple of the Heliconian Neptune, whom the Ionians still hold in great veneration, and offer sacrifices to his honour. They celebrate at that spot the Panionian festival. ⁶ According to the conjecture of some persons, Homer refers to these sacrifices in these lines,

But he breathed out his soul, and bellowed, as a bull

Bellows when he is dragged round the altar of the Heliconian king. ⁷

Il. xx. 403. It is conjectured that the age ⁸ of the poet is later than the migration of the Ionian colony, because he mentions the Panionian sacrifices, which the Ionians perform in honour of the Heliconian Neptune in the territory of Priene; for the Prienians themselves are said to have come from Helice; a young man also of Priene is appointed to preside as king at these sacrifices, and to superintend the celebration of the sacred rites. A still stronger proof is adduced from what is said by the poet respecting the bull, for the Ionians suppose, that sacrifice is performed with favourable omens, when the bull bellows at the instant that he is wounded at the altar.

Others deny this, and transfer to Helice the proofs alleged of the bull and the sacrifice, asserting that these things were done there by established custom, and that the poet drew his comparison from the festival celebrated there. Helice ⁹ was overwhelmed by the waves two years before the battle of Leuctra. Eratosthenes says, that he himself saw the place, and the ferrymen told him that there formerly stood in the strait a brazen statue of Neptune, holding in his hand a hippocampus, ¹⁰ an animal which is dangerous to fishermen.

According to Heracleides, the inundation took place in his time, and during the night. The city was at the distance of 12 stadia from the sea, which overwhelmed the whole intermediate country as well as the city. Two thousand men were sent by the Achaeans to collect the dead bodies, but in vain. The territory was divided among the bordering people. This calamity happened in consequence of the anger of Neptune, for the Ionians, who were driven from Helice, sent particularly to request the people of Helice to give them the image of Neptune, or if they were unwilling to give that, to furnish them with the model of the temple. On their refusal, the Ionians sent to the Achaean body, who decreed, that they should comply with the request, but they would not obey even this injunction. The disaster occurred in the following winter, and after this the Achaeans gave the Ionians the model of the temple.

Hesiod mentions another Helice in Thessaly.

[3] The Achaeans, during a period of five and twenty years, elected, annually, a common secretary, and two military chiefs. Their common assembly of the council met at one place, called Arnarium, (Homarium, or Amarium,) where these persons, and, before their time, the Ionians, consulted on public affairs. They afterwards resolved to elect one military chief. When Aratus held this post, he took the Acrocorinthus from Antigonus, and annexed the city as well as his own country to the Achaean league. ¹¹ He admitted the Megareans also into the body, and, having destroyed the tyrannical governments in each state, he made them members, after they were restored to liberty, of the Achaean league. * * * * * He freed, in a short time, Peloponnesus from the existing tyrannies; thus Argos, Hermion, Phlius, and Megalopolis, the largest of the Arcadian cities, were added to the Achaean body, when they attained their greatest increase of numbers. It was at this time that the Romans, having expelled the Carthaginians from Sicily, undertook an expedition against the Galatae, who were settled about the Po. ¹² The Achaeans remained firmly united until Philopoemen had the military command, but their union was gradually dissolved, after the Romans had obtained possession of the whole of Greece. The Romans did not treat each state in the same manner, but permitted some to retain their own form of government, and dissolved that of others. * * * * * [He then assigns reasons for expatiating on the subject of the Achaeans, namely, their attainment of such a degree of power as to be superior to the Lacedaemonians, and because they were not as well known as they deserved to be from their importance.] ¹³

[4] The order of the places which the Achaeans inhabited, according to the distribution into twelve parts, is as follows. Next to Sicyon is Pellene; Aegeira, the second; the third, Aegae, with a temple of Neptune; Bura, the fourth; then Helice, where the Ionians took refuge after their defeat by the Achaeans, and from which place they were at last banished; after Helice are Aegium, Rhypes, Patrae, and Phara; then Olenus, beside which runs the large river [Peirus?]; then Dyme, and Tritsaeis. The Ionians dwelt in villages, but the Achaeans founded cities, to some of which they afterwards united others transferred from other quarters, as Aegae to Aegeira, (the inhabitants, however, were called Aegaei,) and Olenus to Dyme.

Traces of the ancient settlement of the Olenii are to be seen between Patrae and Dyme: there also is the famous temple of Aesculapius, distant from Dyme 40, and from Patrae 80 stadia.

In Euboea there is a place of the same name with the Aegae here, and there is a town of the name of Olenus in Aetolia, of which there remain only vestiges.

The poet does not mention the Olenus in Achaia, nor many other people living near Aegialus, but speaks in general terms;

along the whole of Aegialus, and about the spacious Helice. ¹⁴

Il. ii. 576. But he mentions the Aetolian Olenus in these words;

those who occupied Pleuron and Olenus. ¹⁵

Il. ii. 639. He mentions both the places of the name of Aegae; the Achaean Aegae in these terms,

who bring presents to Helice, and to Aegae. ¹⁶

Il. viii. 203. But when he says,

Aegae, where his palace is in the depths of the sea,

There Neptune stopped his coursers, ¹⁷

Il. xiii. 21, 34. it is better to understand Aegae in Euboea; whence it is probable the Aegaean Sea had its name. On this sea, according to story, Neptune made his preparations for the Trojan war.

Close to the Achaen Aegae flows the river Crathis, ¹⁸ augmented by the waters of two rivers, and deriving its name from the mixture of their streams. To this circumstance the river Crathis in Italy owes its name.

[5] Each of these twelve portions contained seven or eight demi, so great was the population of the country.

Pellene, ¹⁹ situated at the distance of 60 stadia from the sea, is a strong fortress. There is also a village of the name of Pellene, whence they bring the Pellenian mantles, which are offered as prizes at the public games. It lies between Aegium ²⁰ and Pellene. But Pellana, a different place from these, belongs to the Lacedaemonians, and is situated towards the territory of Megalopolitis.

Aegeira ²¹ is situated upon a hill. Bura is at the distance from the sea-coast of about 40 stadia. It was swallowed up by an earthquake. It is said, that from the fountain Sybaris which is there, the river Sybaris in Italy had its name.

Aega (for this is the name by which Aegae is called) is not now inhabited, but the Aegienses occupy the territory. Aegium, however, is well inhabited. It was here, it is said, that Jupiter was suckled by a goat, as Aratus also says,

the sacred goat, which is said to have applied its teats to the lips of Jupiter. ²²

Phoen. 163. He adds, that, and indicates the place because it was near Olenus. There also is Ceryneia, situated upon a lofty rock. This place, and Helice, belong to the Aegienses, ²³ and the Aenarium, [Homarium,] the grove of Jupiter, where the Achaeans held their convention, when they were to deliberate upon their common affairs.

The river Selinus flows through the city of the Aegienses. It has the same name as that which was beside Artemisium at Ephesus, and that in Elis, which has its course along the spot, that 7enophon ²⁴ says he purchased in compliance with the injunction of an oracle, in honour of Artemis. There is also another Selinus in the country of the Hyblaei Megarenses, whom the Carthaginians expelled.

Of the remaining Achaean cities, or portions, Rhypes is not inhabited, but the territory called Rhypis was occupied by Aegienses and Pharians. Aeschylus also says somewhere,

Myscellus, the founder of Croton, was a native of Rhypes. Leuctrum, belonging to the district Rhypis, was a demus of Rhypes. Between these was Patrae, a considerable city, and in the intervening country, at the distance of 40 stadia from Patrae, are Rhium, ²⁵ and opposite to it, Antirrhium. ²⁶ Not long since the Romans, after the victory at Actium, stationed there a large portion of their army, and at present it is very well peopled, since it is a colony of the Romans. It has also a tolerably good shelter for vessels. Next is Dyme, ²⁷ a city without a harbour, the most westerly of all the cities, whence also it has its name. It was formerly called Stratos. ²⁸ It is separated from Eleia at Buprasium by the river Larisus, ²⁹ which rises in a mountain, called by some persons Scollis, but by Homer, the Olenian rock.

Antimachus having called Dyme Cauconis, some writers suppose that the latter word is used as an epithet derived from the Caucones, who extended as far as this quarter, as I have said before. Others think that it is derived from a river Caucon, in the same way as Thebes has the appellation of Dircaean, and Asopian; and as Argos is called Inachian, and Troy, Simuntis. ³⁰

A little before our time, Dyme had received a colony consisting of a mixed body of people, a remnant of the piratical bands, whose haunts Pompey had destroyed. Some he settled at Soli in Cilicia, and others in other places, and some in this spot.

Phara borders upon the Dymaean territory. The inhabitants of this Phara are called Pharenses; those of the Messenian Phara, Pharatae. In the territory of Phara there is a fountain Dirce, of the same name as that at Thebes.

Olenus is deserted. It lies between Patrae and Dyme. The territory is occupied by the Dymaei. Next is Araxus, ³¹ the promontory of the Eleian district, distant from the isthmus 1000 stadia.