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[1] From this point nothing remains to be recorded except Methydrium itself, which is distant from Tricoloni one hundred and thirty-seven stadium-lengths. It received the name Methydrium (Between the Waters) because there is a high knoll between the river Maloitas and the Mylaon, and on it Orkhomenos built his city. Methydrium too had citizens victorious at Olympia before it belonged to Megalopolis.
[2] There is in Methydrium a temple of Horse Poseidon, standing by the Mylaon. But Mount Thaumasios (Wonderful) lies beyond the river Maloitas, and the Methydrians hold that when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, she came to this mountain and enlisted as her allies, in case Kronos should attack her, Hopladamos and his few giants:
[3] They allow that she gave birth to her son on some part of Mount Lykaios, but they claim that here Kronos was deceived, and here is where they say that the storied substitution of a stone for the child happened. On the summit of the mountain is Rhea’s Cave, into which no human beings may enter save only the women who are sacred to the goddess.
[4] About thirty stadium-lengths from Methydrium is a spring Nymphasia, and it is also thirty stadium-lengths from Nymphasia to the common boundaries of Megalopolis, Orkhomenos and Caphyae.
[5] Passing through the gate at Megalopolis named the Gate to the Marsh, and proceeding by the side of the river Helisson towards Mainalos, there stands on the left of the road a temple of the Good God. If the gods are givers of good things to men, and if Zeus is supreme among gods, it would be consistent to infer that this surname is that of Zeus. A short distance farther on is a mound of earth which is the tomb of Aristodemos, whom in spite of his being a tyrant they could not help calling the Good and there is also a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Contriver, because the goddess is the inventor of plans and devices of all sorts.
[6] On the right of the road there has been made a precinct to the North Wind, and the Megalopolitans offer sacrifices every year, holding none of the gods in greater honor than the North Wind, because he proved their saviour from the Lacedaemonians under Agis. Next is the tomb of Oikles, the father of Amphiaraos, if indeed he met his end in Arcadia, and not after he had joined Hēraklēs in his campaign against Laomedon. After it comes a temple of Demeter styled in the Marsh and her grove, which is five stadium-lengths away from the city, and women only may enter it.
[7] Thirty stadium-lengths away is a place named Paliskios. Going on from Paliskios and leaving on the left the Elaphus, an intermittent stream, after an advance of some twenty stadium-lengths you reach ruins of Peraethenses, among which is a sanctuary of Pan. If you cross the torrent and go straight on for fifteen stadium-lengths you come to a plain, and after crossing it to the mountain called, like the plain, Maenalian. Under the fringe of the mountain are traces of a city Lykoa, a sanctuary of Artemis Lykoan, and a bronze image of her.
[8] On the southern slope of the mountain once stood Sumetia. On this mountain is what is called the Meeting of the Three Ways, whence the Mantineians fetched the bones of Arkas, the son of Kallisto, at the bidding of the Delphic oracle. There are still left ruins of Mainalos itself: traces of a temple of Athena, one race-course for athletes and one for horses. Mount Mainalos is held to be especially sacred to Pan, so that those who dwell around it say that they can actually hear him playing on his pipes.
[9] From the sanctuary of the Mistress to the city of Megalopolis it is forty stadium-lengths. From Megalopolis to the stream of the Alpheios is half this distance. After crossing the river it is two stadium-lengths from the Alpheios to the ruins of Macareae, from these to the ruins of Daseaiseven stadium-lengths, and seven again from Daseaito the hill called Acacesian Hill.
[10] At the foot of this hill used to be a city Acacesium, and even today there is on the hill a stone image of Acacesian Hermes, the story [
logos] of the Arcadians about it being that here the child Hermes was reared, and that Acacus the son of Lykaon became his foster-father. The Theban tell it differently, and the people of Tanagra, again, tell their tale at variance with the Theban.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .