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[1] The Greeks who say that the Peloponnesus has five, and only five, divisions must agree that Arcadia contains both Arcadians and Eleians, that the second division belongs to the Achaeans, and the remaining three to the Dorians. Of the people dwelling in Peloponnesus the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. When the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old Aigialos, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other hand, have from the beginning to the present time continued in possession of their own country.
[2] The rest of Peloponnesus belongs to immigrants. The modern Corinthians are the latest inhabitants of Peloponnesus, and in the era from my time to the time when they received their land from the Roman Emperor is two hundred and seventeen years. The Dryopians reached the Peloponnesus from Parnassus, the Dorians from Oitē.
[3] The Eleians we know crossed over from Calydon and Aetolia generally. Their earlier history I found to be as follows. The first to rule in this land, they say, was Aethlios, who was the son of Zeus and of Protogeneia, the daughter of Deukalion, and the father of Endymion.
[4] The Moon, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty daughters. Others with greater probability say that Endymion took a wife Asterodia—others say she was Kromia, the daughter of Itonos, the son of Amphiktyon; others again, Hyperippe, the daughter of Arkas—but all agree that Endymion begot Paion, Epeios, Aitolos, and also a daughter Eurukuda. Endymion set his sons to run a race at Olympia for the throne; Epeios won, and obtained the kingdom, and his subjects were then named Epeians for the first time.
[5] Of his brothers they say that Aitolos remained at home, while Paion, vexed at his defeat, went into the farthest exile possible and that the region beyond the river Axios was named after him Paionia. As to the death of Endymion, the people of Herakleia near Miletus do not agree with the Eleians for while the Eleians show a tomb of Endymion, the folk of Herakleia say that he retired to Mount Latmos and give him honor, there being a shrine of Endymion on Latmos.
[6] Epeios married Anaxirhoe, the daughter of Koronos, and begot a daughter Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeios the following events also occurred. Oinomaos was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa, he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia.
[7] On the death of Oinomaos, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeios. The Eleians said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of Hermes in Peloponnesus and to sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death of Myrtilos.
[8] Aitolos, who came to the throne after Epeios, was made to flee from Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional homicide. For Apis, the son of Jason, from Pallantion in Arcadia, was run over and killed by the chariot of Aitolos at the Games held in honor of Azan. Aitolos, son of Endymion, gave to the dwellers around the Akhelōos their name, when he fled to this part of the mainland. But the kingdom of the Epeians fell to Eleios, the son of Eurukuda, daughter of Endymion and, believe the tale who will, of Poseidon. It was Eleios who gave the inhabitants their present name of Eleians in place of Epeians.
[9] Eleios had a son Augeias. Those who exaggerate his glory give a turn to the name Eleios and make Hēlios to be the father of Augeias. This Augeias had so many cattle and flocks of goats that actually most of his land remained uncultivated because of the manure produced by the animals. Now he persuaded Hēraklēs to purify for him the land from dung, either in return for a part of Elis or possibly for some other reward.
[10] Hēraklēs accomplished this feat too, turning aside the stream of the Menios into the manure. But because Hēraklēs had accomplished his task by cunning, without toil, Augeias refused to give him his reward and banished Phyleus, the elder of his two sons, for objecting that he was wronging a man who had been his benefactor. He made preparations himself to resist Hēraklēs, should he attack Elis; more particularly, he made friends with the sons of Aktor and with Amarynkeus. Amarynkeus, besides being a good soldier,
[11] had a father, Pyttios, of Thessalian descent, who came from Thessaly to Elis. To Amarynkeus, therefore, Augeias also gave a share in the government of Elis; Aktor and his sons had a share in the kingdom and were natives of the country. For the father of Aktor was Phorbas, son of Lapithos, and his mother was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeios. Aktor named after her the city of Hyrmina, which he founded in Elis.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .