View:
By Section
[1] Proceeding about seven stadium-lengths along the straight road to Mases, you reach, on turning to the left, a road to Halice. At the present day Halice is deserted, but once it, too, had inhabitants, and there is mention made of citizens of Halice on the Epidaurian slabs on which are inscribed the cures of Asklepios. I know, however, no other authentic document in which mention is made either of the city Halice or of its citizens. Well, to this city also there is a road, which lies midway between Pron and another mountain, called in old days Thornax; but they say that the name was changed because, according to what they say, it was here that the transformation of Zeus into a cuckoo took place.
[2] Even to the present day there are sanctuaries on the tops of the mountains: on Mount Cuckoo one of Zeus, on Pron one of Hērā. At the foot of Mount Cuckoo is a temple, but there are no doors standing, and I found it without a roof or a statue [
agalma] inside. The temple was said to be Apollo’s. by the side of it runs a road to Mases for those who have turned aside from the straight road. Mases was in old days a city, even as Homer
205
represents it in the catalogue of the Argives, but in my time the Hermionians were using it as a seaport.
[3] From Mases there is a road on the right to a headland called Strouthos (Sparrow Peak). From this headland by way of the summits of the mountains the distance to the place called Philanorium and to the Boleoi is two hundred and fifty stadium-lengths. These Boleoi are heaps of unhewn stones. Another place, called Twins, is twenty stadium-lengths distant from here. There is here a sanctuary of Apollo, a sanctuary of Poseidon, and in addition one of Demeter. The statues [
agalmata] are of white marble, and are upright.
[4] Next comes a district, belonging to the Argives, that once was called Asinaia, and by the sea are ruins of Asine. When the Lacedaemonians and their king Nikandros, son of Kharillos, son of Polydektes, son of Eunomos, son of Prytanis, son of Eurypon, invaded Argolis with an army, the Asinaeans joined in the invasion, and with them ravaged the land of the Argives. When the Lacedaemonian expedition departed home, the Argives under their king Eratos attacked Asine.
[5] For a time the Asinaeans defended themselves from their wall, and killed among others Lysistratos, one of the most notable men of Argos. But when the wall was lost, the citizens put their wives and children on board their vessels and abandoned their own country; the Argives, while leveling Asine to the ground and annexing its territory to their own, left the sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus, which is still visible, and by it they buried Lysistratos.
[6] Distant from Argos forty stadium-lengths and no more is the sea at Lerna. On the way down to Lerna the first thing on the road is the Erasinos, which empties itself into the Phrixos, and the Phrixos into the sea between Temenium and Lerna. About eight stadium-lengths to the left from the Erasinos is a sanctuary of the Lords Dioskouroi (Sons of Zeus). Their wooden images have been made similar to those in the city.
[7] On returning to the straight road, you will cross the Erasinos and reach the river Kheimarros (Winter-torrent). Near it is a circuit of stones, and they say that Pluto [Ploutōn], after carrying off, according to the story, Kore, the daughter of Demeter, descended here to his fabled kingdom underground. Lerna is, I have already stated, by the sea, and here they celebrate mysteries in honor of Lernaean Demeter.
[8] There is a sacred grove beginning on the mountain they call Pontinos. Now Mount Pontinos does not let the rainwater flow away, but absorbs it into itself. From it flows a river, also called Pontinos. Upon the top of the mountain is a sanctuary of Athena Saitis, now merely a ruin; there are also the foundations of a house of Hippomedon, who went to Thebes to redress the wrongs of Polyneikes, son of Oedipus.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .