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[1] Turning away from here towards the gate called Holy you see, not far from the gate, a temple of Athena. Dedicated long ago by Epopeus, it surpassed all its contemporaries in size and splendor. Yet the memory of even this was doomed to perish through lapse of time—it was burned down by lightning—but the altar there, which escaped injury, remains down to the present day as Epopeus made it. Before the altar a barrow has been raised for Epopeus himself, and near the tomb are the gods Averters of evil. Near them the Greeks perform such rites as they are accustomed to do in order to avert misfortunes. They say that the neighboring sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo was also made by Epopeus, and that of Hērā after it by Adrastos. I found no statues [
agalmata] remaining in either. Behind the sanctuary of Hērā he built an altar to Pan, and one to Hēlios [Sun] made of white marble.
[2] On the way down to the plain is a sanctuary of Demeter, said to have been founded by Plemnaios as a thank-offering to the goddess for the rearing of his son. A little farther away from the sanctuary of Hērā founded by Adrastos is a temple of Apollo Karneios. Only the pillars are standing in it; you will no longer find there walls or roof, nor yet in that of Hērā Pioneer. This temple was founded by Phalkes, son of Temenus, who asserted that Hērā guided him on the road to Sikyon.
[3] On the direct road from Sikyon to Phleious, on the left of the road and just about ten stadium-lengths from it, is a grove called Puraiā, and in it a sanctuary of Hērā Protectress and the Maiden. Here the men celebrate a festival by themselves, giving up to the women the temple called Nymphon for the purposes of their festival. In the Nymphon are statues [
agalmata] of Dionysus, Demeter, and the Maiden, with only their faces exposed. The road to Titane is sixty stadium-lengths long, and too narrow to be used by carriages drawn by a yoke.
[4] At a distance along it, in my opinion, of twenty stadium-lengths, to the left on the other side of the Asopos, is a grove of holm oaks and a temple of the goddesses named by the Athenians the August, and by the Sikyonians the Kindly Ones. On one day in each year they celebrate a festival to them and offer sheep big with young as a burned offering, and they are accustomed to use a libation of honey and water, and flowers instead of garlands. They practice similar rites at the altar of the Fates; it is in an open space in the grove.
[5] On turning back to the road, and having crossed the Asopos again and reached the summit of the hill, you come to the place where the natives say that Titan first dwelled. They add that he was the brother of Hēlios [Sun], and that after him the place got the name Titane. My own view is that he proved clever at observing the seasons of the year and the times when the sun increases and ripens seeds and fruits, and for this reason was held to be the brother of Hēlios. Afterwards Alexanor, the son of Machaon, the son of Asklepios, came to Sikyonia and built the sanctuary of Asklepios at Titane.
[6] The neighbors are chiefly servants of the god, and within the enclosure are old cypress trees. One cannot learn of what wood or metal the statue [
agalma] is, nor do they know the name of the maker, though one or two attribute it to Alexanor himself. Of the statue [
agalma] can be seen only the face, hands, and feet, for it has about it a tunic of white wool and a cloak. There is a similar statue [
agalma] of Hygieia; this, too, one cannot see easily because it is so surrounded with the locks of women, who cut them off and offer them to the goddess, and with strips of Babylonian raiment. With whichever of these a votary here is willing to make propitiations, the same instructions have been given to him, to worship this image which they are pleased to call Hygieia.
[7] There are statues [
agalmata] also of Alexanor and of Euamerion; to the former they give offerings as to a hero after the setting of the sun; to Euamerion, as being a god, they give burned sacrifices. If I conjecture aright, the Pergamenes, in accordance with an oracle, call this Euamerion Telesphoros (Accomplisher) while the Epidaurians call him Akesis (Cure). There is also a wooden image of Coronis, but it has no fixed position anywhere in the temple. While to the god are being sacrificed a bull, a lamb, and a pig, they remove Coronis to the sanctuary of Athena and honor her there. The parts of the victims which they offer as a burned sacrifice, and they are not content with cutting out the thighs, they burn on the ground, except the birds, which they burn on the altar.
[8] In the gable at the ends are figures of Hēraklēs and of Victories. In the portico are dedicated statues [
agalmata] of Dionysus and Hekate, with Aphrodite, the Mother of the gods, and Fortune. These are wooden, but Asklepios, surnamed Gortynian, is of stone. They are unwilling to enter among the sacred serpents through fear, but they place their food before the entrance and take no further trouble. Within the enclosure is a bronze statue of a Sikyonian named Granianus, who won the following victories at Olympia: the pentathlon twice, the foot-race, the double-course foot-race twice, once without and once with the shield.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .