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
We know that the people of Elis originally came from Calydon and
other parts of Ætolia. And the oldest information I have found about
them is as follows. The first king in this land was they say Aethlius,
the son of Zeus by Protogenea the daughter of Deucalion, and the father
of Endymion. The Moon was they say enamoured of this Endymion, and
had by him 50 daughters. But a more probable account is that Endymion
married Asterodia, others say Chromia the daughter of Itonus the son of
Amphictyon, others say Hyperippe the daughter of Arcas, and had three
sons, Pæon and Epeus and Ætolus, and one daughter Eurycyde. Endymion
also made his sons contend in running at Olympia for the kingdom, and
Epeus won, so the people over whom he ruled were first called Epeans.
And of his brothers Ætolus they say remained at home, but Pæon vexed
at his loss went as far away as possible, and the region beyond the
river Axius was called Pæonia after him. As to the death of Endymion
different accounts are given by the Heracleotæ at Miletus and by the
people of Elis, but the latter show the sepulchre of Endymion, while
the former say that he retired to Mount Latmus, where is his shrine.
And Epeus married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, by whom he had a
daughter Hyrmina, but no male offspring. And these were the events of
his reign. Œnomaus the son of Alxion, (or the son of Ares, as poets
have sung, which is the prevalent tradition), being ruler of the
country called Pisæa, was deposed from his rule by Pelops the Lydian,
who had crossed over from Asia Minor. And after his death Pelops
occupied Pisæa and Olympia, slicing off from the territory of Epeus
what bordered upon Pisæa. And Pelops (so the people of Elis say) was
the first in the Peloponnese to build a temple to Hermes and sacrifice
to him, thus turning away the wrath of the god for the murder of
Myrtilus.
And Ætolus, the king after Epeus, had to flee from the Peloponnese,
because the sons of Apis indicted him for the involuntary murder of
their father. For Apis the son of Jason, a native of Pallantium in
Arcadia, was killed by Ætolus’ driving over him in his chariot at the
funeral games in memory of Azan. So Ætolus the son of Endymion fled to
the mainland, to the neighbourhood of the river Achelous, which was
called Ætolia after him. And the kingdom of the Epeans was reigned over
by Eleus, the son of Eurycyde, the daughter of Endymion and (if we may
believe the tradition) Poseidon. And the people in his dominions now
changed their names from Epeans to Eleans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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