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 ascent to Acro-Corinthus there is also a temple of Aphrodite:
and statues of her in full armour, and the Sun, and Cupid with a bow.
And the fountain behind the temple is they say the gift of Asopus to
Sisyphus: for he, though he knew that Zeus had carried off Ægina the
daughter of Asopus, refused to tell him unless he would give him this
water on Acro-Corinthus. And Asopus giving this water he vouchsafed
the required information, and for his information pays the penalty
in Hades, if indeed this is credible. But I have heard people say
that this fountain is Pirene, and that the water in the city flows
down from it. This river Asopus has its rise in the neighbourhood of
Phlius, flows through the Sicyonian district, and has its outlet in the
Corinthian Gulf. And the people of Phlius say that Asopus’ daughters
were Corcyra and Ægina and Thebe: and that from Corcyra and Ægina the
islands Scheria and Œnone got their present names, and that Thebe gave
its name to Thebes the city of Cadmus. But the Thebans do not admit
this, for they say that Thebe was the daughter of the Bœotian Asopus,
and not the Asopus that has its rise at Phlius. The Phliasians and
Sicyonians say further about this river that it is foreign and not
indigenous, for Mæander they say flowing down from Celænæ through
Phrygia and Caria, and falling into the sea at Miletus, travelled to
the Peloponnese and made the river Asopus. And I remember to have
heard something of the same kind from the people of Delos of the
river Inopus, which they say came to them from the Nile. And moreover
there is a tradition that the same Nile is the river Euphrates, which
was lost in a lake and re-emerged as the Nile in the remote part of
Ethiopia. This is what I heard about the Asopus. As you turn towards
the mountains from Acro-Corinthus is the Teneatic gate, and a temple
of Ilithyia. Now Tenea is about 60 stades from Corinth. And the people
of Tenea say that they are Trojans, and were carried away captive by
the Greeks from Tenedos, and located here by Agamemnon: and accordingly
Apollo is the god they hold in highest honour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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