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[1] As you go from Psophis to Thelpusa you first reach on the left of the Ladon a place called Tropaea, adjoining which is a grove, Aphrodisium. Thirdly, there is ancient writing on a slab:
“The boundary between Psophis and Thelpusa.”
In the Thelpusian territory is a river called Arsen (Male). Cross this and go on for about twenty-five stadium-lengths, when you will arrive at the ruins of the village Caus, with a sanctuary of Causian Asklepios, built on the road.
[2] Thelpusa is some forty stadium-lengths distant from this sanctuary. It is said that it was named after Thelpusa, a nymph, and that she was a daughter of Ladon. The Ladon rises in springs within the territory of Kleitor, as my account has already set forth. It flows first beside a place Leucasium and Mesoboa, through Nasi to Oryx, also called Halus, and from Halus it descends to Thaliades and a sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter.
[3] This sanctuary is on the borders of Thelpusa. In it are images, each no less than seven feet high, of Demeter, her daughter, and Dionysus, all alike of stone. After the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess the Ladon flows by the city Thelpusa on the left, situated on a high hill, in modern times so deserted that the marketplace, which is at the extremity of it, was originally, they say, right in the very middle of it. Thelpusa has a temple of Asklepios and a sanctuary of the twelve gods; the greater part of this, I found, lay level with the ground.
[4] After Thelpusa the Ladon descends to the sanctuary of Demeter in Onceium. The Thelpusians call the goddess Fury, and with them agrees Antimakhos also, who wrote a poem about the expedition of the Argives against Thebes. His verse runs thus:
“There, they say, is the seat of Demeter Fury.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
Now Onkios was, according to tradition, a son of Apollo, and held sway in Thelpusian territory around the place Oncium; the goddess has the surname Fury for the following reason.
[5] When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Onkios; realizing that he was outwitted, Poseidon too changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter.
[6] At first, they say, Demeter was angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the Ladon. So the goddess has obtained two surnames, Fury because of her avenging anger, because the Arcadians call being wrathful “being furious,” and Bather (Lusia) because she bathed in the Ladon. The images in the temple are of wood, but their faces, hands and feet are of Parian marble.
[7] The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch; her height I conjecture to be nine feet. Lusia seemed to be six feet high. Those who think the image to be Themis and not Demeter Lusia are, I would have them know, mistaken in their opinion. Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not accustomed to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon Horse.
[8] They quote verses from the
Iliad and from the
Thebaid in confirmation of their story. In the
Iliad there are verses about Areion himself:
“Not even if he drive divine Areion behind,
The swift horse of Adrastos, who was of the lineage of the gods.”
Iliad 23.346
The swift horse of Adrastos, who was of the lineage of the gods.”
In the Thebaid it is said that Adrastos fled from Thebes:
“Wearing wretched clothes, and with him dark-maned Areion.”
Thebaid, unknown location
They will have it that the verses obscurely hint that Poseidon was father to Areion, but Antimakhos says that Earth was his mother:
[9]
“Adrastos, son of Talaos, son of Kretheus,
The very first of the Danai to drive his famous horses,
Swift Caerus and Areion of Thelpusa,
Whom near the grove of Oncean Apollo
Earth herself sent up, a marvel for mortals to see.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
The very first of the Danai to drive his famous horses,
Swift Caerus and Areion of Thelpusa,
Whom near the grove of Oncean Apollo
Earth herself sent up, a marvel for mortals to see.”
[10] But even though sprung from Earth the horse might be of divine lineage and the color of his hair might still be dark. It is also said that when Hēraklēs was warring on Elis he asked Oncus for the horse, and was carried to battle on the back of Areion when he took Elis, but afterwards the horse was given to Adrastos by Hēraklēs. Wherefore Antimakhos says about Areion:
“Adrastos was the third lord who tamed him.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
[11] The Ladon, leaving on the left the sanctuary of the Fury, passes on the left the temple of Oncaeatian Apollo, and on the right a sanctuary of Boy Asklepios, where is the tomb of Trygon, who is said to have been the nurse of Asklepios. For the story is that Asklepios, when little, was exposed in Thelpusa, but was found by Autolaos, the illegitimate son of Arkas, who reared the baby, and for this reason Boy Asklepios … I thought more likely, as also I set forth in my account of Epidaurus.
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[12] There is a river Tuthoa, and it falls into the Ladon at the boundary between Thelpusa and Heraia, called Plain by the Arcadians. Where the Ladon itself falls into the Alpheios is an island called the Island of Crows. Those who have thought that Enispe, Stratia and Rhipe, mentioned by Homer,
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were once inhabited islands in the Ladon, cherish, I would tell them, a false belief.
[13] For the Ladon could never show islands even as large as a ferry-boat. As far as beauty is concerned, it is second to no river, either in Greece or in barbarian lands, but it is not big enough to carry islands on its waters, as do the Danube and the Eridanos.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .