Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
On the left of Gythium about 30 stades’ distance you will see on
the mainland the walls of Trinasus, which seems to me to have been
a fort and not a town. And I think it got its name from the three
small islands which lie here near the mainland. And about 80 stades
from Trinasus you come to the ruins of Helus, and 30 stades further
to Acriæ a city on the sea, where is a handsome temple of the Mother
of the Gods, and her statue in stone. And the inhabitants of Acriæ
say that this is the oldest of all the temples of this goddess in the
Peloponnese: though the Magnesians who live north of Sipylus have on a
rock called Coddinus the most ancient statue of the Mother of the Gods;
and the Magnesians say it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalus.
Acriæ once produced a victor at Olympia in Nicocles, who carried off at
two Olympiads five victories in the chariot race. His tomb is between
the gymnasium and the walls near the harbour. It is about 120 stades
from Acriæ to Geronthræ. Geronthræ was inhabited before the Heraclidæ
came to the Peloponnese, and the inhabitants were driven out by the
Dorians of Lacedæmon, who, when they had driven out the Achæans from
Geronthræ, put in colonists of their own. But Geronthræ now belongs
to the Eleutherolacones. On the road from Acriæ to Geronthræ there
is a village called Palæa, and at Geronthræ there is a temple and
grove of Ares, whose festival they celebrate annually, when women are
forbidden to enter the grove. And near the market-place are fountains
of drinkable water. And in the citadel there is a temple of Apollo,
and the head of his image in ivory: all the rest of the image was
destroyed by fire when the old temple was burnt. Another town belonging
to the Eleutherolacones is Marius, 100 stades from Geronthræ. There is
an old temple there common to all the gods, and round it a grove with
fountains, there are also fountains in the temple of Artemis. Marius
indeed has plenty of water if any place. And above Marius is a village
called Glyptia in the interior of the country. And there is another
village called Selinus about 20 stades from Geronthræ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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